intuition Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun instinctive knowing (without the use of rational processes)
  2. noun an impression that something might be the case
    suspicion; hunch.
    • he had an intuition that something had gone wrong

WordNet

In`tu*i"tion noun
Etymology
L. intuitus, p. p. of intueri to look on; in- in, on + tueri: cf. F. intuition. See Tuition.
Definitions
  1. A looking after; a regard to. Obs.
    What, no reflection on a reward! He might have an intuition at it, as the encouragement, though not the cause, of his pains. Fuller.
  2. Direct apprehension or cognition; immediate knowledge, as in perception or consciousness; -- distinguished from "mediate" knowledge, as in reasoning; as, the mind knows by intuition that black is not white, that a circle is not a square, that three are more than two, etc.; quick or ready insight or apprehension.
    Sagacity and a nameless something more, -- let us call it intuition. Hawthorne.
  3. Any object or truth discerned by direct cognition; especially, a first or primary truth.

Webster 1913