Definition
verbTo perceive or detect someone or something with the eyes, or as if by sight.
verbTo perceive or detect someone or something with the eyes, or as if by sight., To witness or observe by personal experience.
Sentence Examples
There's a problem there that you don't see.
It almost scared me not to see you online for a whole day.
She looked for him but couldn't see him in the crowd.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English seen, from Old English sēon (“to see, look, behold, perceive, observe, discern, understand, know”), from Proto-West Germanic *sehwan, from Proto-Germanic *sehwaną (“to see”), from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- (“to see, notice”).
Cognates
Cognate with Scots see, sei (“to see”), Yola sau, ze, zee, zey, zie (“to see”), North Frisian se, si, siin, siine, siinj, sä, säie (“to see”), Saterland Frisian sjo (“to see”), West Frisian sjen (“to see”), Bavarian segn (“to see”), Central Franconian sehn, senn (“to see”), Dutch zien (“to see”), Low German sehn (“to see; to look”), German sehen (“to see”), Limburgish séëne, zeen (“to see”), Luxembourgish gesinn (“to see”), Alemannic German gseh (“to see”), Mòcheno sechen (“to see”), Vilamovian zaon (“to see”), Yiddish זען (zen, “to see”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Swedish se (“to see”), Elfdalian sją̊ (“to see”), Faroese síggja (“to see”), Icelandic sjá (“to see”), Norwegian Nynorsk sjå (“to see”), sia (“to foretell”), Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌹𐍈𐌰𐌽 (saiƕan, “to see”), and more distantly with Albanian shof, shoh (“to see”), Latin secūtus, sequūtus (“followed”), Ancient Greek ἕπομαι (hépomai, “to follow, obey”), Persian ا (a), از (az), ز (ze, “from, of”), Luwian 𒁕𒀀𒌋𒄿𒅖 (“eye”), Sanskrit सच् (sac, “to be associated with, familiar with, have to do with”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path.[…]It twisted and turned,[…]and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. And, back of the lawn, was a big, old-fashioned house, with piazzas stretching in front of it, and all blazing with lights. 'Twas the house I'd seen the roof of from the beach."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 18:
"But Richmond[…]appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw[…]that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that either."
— 1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:
"Uerely, verely I ſay vnto you, If a man keepe my ſaying, hee ſhall neuer ſee death."
— 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, John 8:51, column 1:
"[…] And remember this, 'scape-gallows,' said Ralph, menacing him with his hand, 'that if we meet again, and you so much as notice me by one begging gesture, you shall see the inside of a jail once more […]"
— 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, “Mr. Ralph Nickleby cuts an old Acquaintance. It would also appear from the contents hereof, that a joke, even between Husband and Wife, may be sometimes carried too far.”, in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 434:
"It is not just that we see birds as little versions of ourselves. It is also that, at the same time, they stand outside any moral process. They are utterly indifferent. This absolute oblivion on their part, this lack of sharing, is powerful."
— 2013 August 23, Mark Cocker, “Wings of Desire”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 11, page 28: