Make Your Point > Archived Issues > INTUIT

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pronounce INTUIT: There are several correct pronunciations. I say "in TOO wit." To hear it, click here. connect this word to others: There's Troi from Star Trek, frustrating everybody with her underwhelming powers to intuit others' emotions. "Captain, that man who just yelled at you before firing his weapons-- I sense that he's... angry." Not her fault. She's only half-Betazoid, so, only half-intuitive. If you're intuitive, you just know things. You feel them in your bones. And if you're cl______ant, you just see things. You look into the future. (To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.) definition: Let's start with the Latin word tueri, "to look at, or to watch over." (That's the same tueri that gave us "tutor," literally a "watcher, guardian, or protector.") Take tueri and stick on a prefix meaning "into," and you have the Latin intueri: "to look at something, to consider something." That intueri gave us our English word "intuition," which first meant "the act of looking at something, the act of considering something or thinking it over." Over time, "intuition" was warped by scholars and philosophers into something totally different, even opposite. Now, your intuition is your immediate understanding of something, as if you just know it in your heart or you just get it in your gut. No thought required. And so, since about 1828, we've used "intuit" to mean "to get an immediate understanding (of something), as if through your heart or your gut rather than your eyes or your brain." grammatical bits: Part of speech: Verb, the transitive kind: "He intuited this fact;" "She intuited that this would happen." Other common forms:  Intuited, intuiting; intuition; intuitive, intuitively. how to use it: Pick the semi-common word "intuit" to strike a serious tone. I used to think it was an ugly word, a deformed hunk that fell off "intuitive" or "intuition," but now it's growing on me. If you have an opinion on the relative grace or awkwardness of "intuit," please share it with me! We talk about people intuiting things that aren't easily visible, such as other people's feelings, preferences, or intentions. Or, past or future events, or causes and effects. You can say someone intuits something from some piece of evidence: "You intuited her mood from the sound of her footsteps." And, you can say someone intuits that something happened, or will happen ("He intuited that the ring had been stolen, not lost"), or that something is true ("She intuited that something was amiss"). examples: "The waiter, somehow intuiting the pause in Celia's story, melted back into view. 'Are we ready to order?'"    — Sandhya Menon, When Dimple Met Rishi, 2017 "[Keanu Reeves] signed an autograph for a sixteen-year-old ticket seller at a movie theatre after intuiting that the teen was too shy to ask him for one directly."    — Naomi Fry, The New Yorker, 3 June 2019 has this page helped you understand "intuit"? Awesome, I'm glad it helped! Thanks for letting me know! If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. study it: Explain the meaning of "intuit" without saying "to divine" or "to feel it in your bones." try it out: In a book review for the New York Times, Megan O’Grady wrote, "Children intuit far more than we think they do." Talk about what she means. In your own experience with children, has her observation held true? Are children often more deeply intuitive than we realize? If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.) before you review, play: Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out. Our game for April is "Netflix and Anagram." Check out the anagrammed title of a series or movie you can watch on Netflix, along with a descriptive sentence or two about it from Google. See if you can come up with the real title. To see the answer, scroll all the way down. Here's an example. IF CRUEL: "After abandoning his throne and retiring to Los Angeles, he indulges in his favorite things (women, wine and song) -- until a murder takes place outside of his upscale nightclub." The answer is LUCIFER. Try this one today: SOULFUL HERE: "In this spinoff, D.J., now a widow and a mother to three sons, finds herself back in her childhood home alongside her sister Stephanie and her lifelong friend Kimmy." review this word: 1. A near opposite of INTUIT is A. HAVE THEM EAT OUT OF YOUR HAND. B. HAVE IT GO RIGHT OVER YOUR HEAD. C. HAVE IT GO IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER. 2. Wide-eyed and dumb, Dorothy believes in Professor Marvel's powers of intuition, even as he says _____ A. "Her face is careworn. Her name is Emily. Why, she's crying!" B. "Professor Marvel never guesses--he knows! Now, why are you running away?" C. "There's a storm blowing up--a whopper, to speak in the vernacular of the peasantry." Answers to review questions: 1. B 2. B Answer to the game question: FULLER HOUSE. a final word: I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog:    36 ways to study words.    Why we forget words, & how to remember them.    How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.