What does intuited mean?
Intuited is the past tense and past participle of intuit, a verb meaning to understand or perceive something immediately and instinctively. It describes an insight that arises without conscious analysis, often involving feelings, patterns, or an unexplained sense that something is true. For example, a person may have intuited that a situation was dangerous or that another person was lying. The word is somewhat more formal and literary than simply “felt,” but it conveys a stronger impression of perception or understanding. In its standard inflected form, intuited is used with the present perfect, past progressive, or as a participle in a passive or reduced clause.
verbThe past tense and past participle of intuit: to understand or perceive something immediately, instinctively, or without conscious reasoning.
- To understand or perceive something immediately and instinctively, especially without conscious reasoning.
"She intuited that something was wrong before the phone rang."
"The detective intuited that the witness was hiding something."
"Investors intuited a change in the market before it was publicly announced."
To intuit something is to let instinct do the reasoning before doubt gets a vote.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does intuited come from?
The word comes from the Latin intueri, meaning “to look at” or “to perceive,” formed from in- (“into” or “toward”) and tueri (“to look”). English developed the related noun intuition and the adjective intuitive, from the same Latin root. The verb intuit entered English in the 17th century with the sense of perceiving intuitively, and intuited follows the regular English formation of adding the -ed ending.
Related word forms
How intuited is actually used
Usually formal or literary. It is commonly used with an object, a that-clause, or an infinitive, and can suggest an insight that is difficult to explain through deliberate reasoning.
Easily confused with intuited
Intuition is the faculty or feeling of understanding something without conscious reasoning, whereas intuited is the past tense and past participle of the verb intuit.