See

How to spell see

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce see

What does see mean?

1. verbTo perceive something with the eyes, or to understand something mentally.

See in a sentence

• From the office window you can see the whole car park.

• The optician asked whether she could see the smallest row of letters.

Where does see come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English seon, meaning to perceive with the eyes, to look, or to understand. It traces back to the Proto-Germanic sehwan, the same source that gave German sehen and Dutch zien, all carrying the basic idea of using sight. Scholars connect it to a Proto-Indo-European root that meant to follow or to notice, which fits the way seeing and mental understanding have always overlapped (as in the modern phrase 'I see what you mean'). The spelling settled on the doubled vowel ee to mark the long sound, which is also why it falls into a tidy homophone trap with the unrelated word sea, from Old English sae. There is a quite separate noun see, the seat or jurisdiction of a bishop, which came in later from Latin sedes 'a seat' by way of Old French; despite the identical spelling, it has nothing to do with the verb of sight.

How the word is built

• see (single root from Old English seon, to perceive with the eyes)

Words that sound like see

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• sea: A large body of salt water that covers much of the earth or forms part of an ocean.