n. Originally, and most commonly down to the middle of the eighteenth century, cognition; thought and sense in general, whether the faculty, the operation, or the resulting idea.n. The mental faculty, operation, or resulting construction of the imagination, of gaining knowledge by virtue of a real action of an object upon the mind.n. An immediate judgment founded on sense or other real action of the object upon the mind, more or less analogous to what takes place in vision.n. In law, participation in receipts; community of interest in income: as, the perception of profits.