Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word peruse. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word peruse, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say peruse in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word peruse you have here. The definition of the word peruse will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofperuse, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Not every German who bought a copy of Mein Kampf necessarily read it. […]But it might be argued that had more non-Nazi Germans read it before 1933 and had the foreign statesmen of the world perused it carefully while there still was time, both Germany and the world might have been saved from catastrophe.
I loved to straggle off in the mornings […], just perusing around for firewood.
Usage notes
The sense of "skimming" is proscribed by some authorities on usage, including the Oxford American Dictionary. The shift, however, is not dissimilar to that found in scan, and thus, interestingly, peruse and scan are a synonym pair in which each is a contranym meaning either "to read carefully" or "to read hastily". To avoid ambiguity—and reader annoyance—careful writers may prefer skim when skimming is meant or scrutinize when care is meant. The Oxford English Dictionary further notes that the word peruse was used as a general synonym for read as far back as the 16th century.