Meanings
present singular third person insees · participle present inseeing · past insaw · participle past inseen
- To have or gain insight into; to empathise with or come to fully understand one's point of view.
This process of intuitional knowledge is strikingly analogous to the process of inseeing (Einsehen) Rilke described in his letters. I love inseeing. Can you imagine with me how glorious it is to insee...
1990, Sandra Gilbert, Acts of attention: the poems of D.H. Lawrence - To inspect.
Origin
- GermanEinsehen“recognition, observation”
- Englishinsee
From in- + see, or taken as a back-formation of inseeing, itself a loan-translation / calque of German Einsehen (“recognition, observation”). Compare Old English onsēon (“to look on, observe, regard, take notice of”). More at insight.
More words from German
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
insee. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/insee
“insee.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/insee. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “insee,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/insee.
Source: insee on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.