percipit

Percipit is a Latin verb form that appears in scholarly and legal contexts. It is the third‑person singular present indicative of the verb percipio, which means “to receive, to receive by touch or perception, to bring in” (the root cipio means “to take” or “to receive,” and the prefix per‑ denotes “through” or “across”). In classical literature, Cicero and later Roman authors employ percipit in passages that depict the act of receiving information or an object. The West–Germanic Romance languages all preserve this concept in their verbs for “to receive” (e.g., French reçoit, Italian riceve, Spanish recibe).

In the Vulgate, the word appears frequently, where it is translated as “received” or “stood” depending on context. In medieval legal Latin, percipit indicated the formal receipt of a writ or document, a usage that survives in legal phraseology such as “percipit et appropriat.” The form is used less in modern Latin lexicon but remains an important part of the grammar of Classical Latin used in education. A typical Latin phrase might read: “Dioscuri percipit victimam” (“The Dioscuri receive the victim”), an example of the verb’s finite form.

Morphologically, percipit follows the standard third‑conjugation paradigm of Latin: stem percip-, present active Qo. The infinitive of the verb is percipio. The participle is percipiens, and the gerundive is percipiens. Because percipit is a verb form, not a standalone noun, most references to it occur within the broader discussion of Latin grammar or in translations of ancient texts.