Per se or perse?
per se is an adverb meaning “Without determination by or involvement of extraneous factors; by its very…”; perse is a noun meaning “A very dark (almost black) purple or blue-gray colour”. Use per se as an adverb and perse as a noun. per se is written as two words and perse as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between per se and perse?
| per se | perse | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adverb, adjective | noun, adjective |
| Meaning | Without determination by or involvement of extraneous factors; by its very nature As the principle of its own determination and positing itself Positing itself and being a principle of its own determination | A very dark (almost black) purple or blue-gray colour A cloth of this colour Very dark greyish (almost blackish) purple or blue |
| Example | Near-synonyms: by definition, by nature, essentially, in essence, ipso facto, intrinsically; see also Thesaurus:intrinsically | none recorded |
| Forms | none | perses |
| Pronunciation | /pəˈseɪ/ /pɚˈseɪ/ /pɚˈsiː/ | /pɜːs/ /pəːs/ /pɚs/ |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | about once in every 6 million words |
Sources: per se and perse in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of per se and perse
per se
- 1
Without determination by or involvement of extraneous factors; by its very nature
Near-synonyms: by definition, by nature, essentially, in essence, ipso facto, intrinsically; see also Thesaurus:intrinsically
- 2
Positing itself and being a principle of its own determination
- 3
As the principle of its own determination and positing itself
- 4
That does not leave discretion to the judge to take into account additional factors that could rebut the judgment, deriving the qualification from the statute
- 5
Not leaving discretion to the judge to take into account additional factors that could rebut the judgment, deriving the qualification from the statute
The law makes drunk driving illegal per se
perse
- 1
A very dark (almost black) purple or blue-gray colour
- 2
Very dark greyish (almost blackish) purple or blue
- 3
A cloth of this colour
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, per se or perse?
per se is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; perse about once in every 6 million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search per se vs perse?
“per se vs perse” is searched about 10 times a month on Bing (Google reports it together with close variants, so it has no figure of its own) in the United States.
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.