INTUITION

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Instinctive knowing (without the use of rational processes)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("intuition" is a kind of...):

basic cognitive process (cognitive processes involved in obtaining and storing knowledge)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "intuition"):

feeling; intuitive feeling (an intuitive understanding of something)

gnosis (intuitive knowledge of spiritual truths; said to have been possessed by ancient Gnostics)

insight; sixth sense (grasping the inner nature of things intuitively)

immediacy; immediate apprehension (immediate intuitive awareness)

inspiration (a sudden intuition as part of solving a problem)

Derivation:

intuit (know or grasp by intuition or feeling)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An impression that something might be the case

Example:

he had an intuition that something had gone wrong

Synonyms:

hunch; intuition; suspicion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("intuition" is a kind of...):

belief; feeling; impression; notion; opinion (a vague idea in which some confidence is placed)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "intuition"):

bosom; heart (the locus of feelings and intuitions)

Derivation:

intuit (know or grasp by intuition or feeling)

Credits

Context examples:

His intuition told him it was the wrong thing to do, and he was glad that sheet and tiller kept his hands occupied and fended off temptation.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis with which he unravelled the problems which were submitted to him.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals.