perusal

Meanings

1. The act of reading something, especially with care.
2. A look through or over something, such as a shelf or a menu.

Example sentences

• "A careful perusal of the contract revealed several errors."

  Level C1, Meaning 1

• "The documents are enclosed for your perusal."

  Level C1, Meaning 1

• "After a quick perusal of the menu, she ordered soup."

  Level C1, Meaning 2

• "His perusal of the old letters took the whole afternoon."

  Level C1, Meaning 1

Synonyms and antonyms

Look-alikes and common mistakes

• reading : Reading is the plain, everyday word. Perusal sounds formal and often means careful, close reading.
• browsing : Browsing is a casual look through things. Perusal is more careful, though the verb peruse is sometimes used for a quick look.

Word family and forms

Forms: perusals

Word partners

Words and phrases that often go with "perusal".

• careful perusal
• for your perusal
• a quick perusal
• on perusal
• perusal of the documents

Origin

Perusal is built from the verb peruse plus the ending -al, which turns a verb into a noun for the act. It is first recorded in English in the 1590s.

Checked against: Wiktionary, the free dictionary, Dictionary.com.

How to remember it

Say peruse, then add -al: you peruse a page, and your reading of it is a perusal.

Test yourself

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