Meaning & use
an intuition
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A feeling or idea that you have without needing to think or reason about it.
Grammar: Countable: you can have an intuition, or several intuitions. Use 'an' before a vowel sound.
Patterns
- have an intuition
- an intuition about something
- an intuition that ...
I had an intuition that something was wrong, so I called her.
His intuition about the market turned out to be right.
She couldn't explain it, but she had a strong intuition about the stranger.
noununcountable
The ability to understand or know something immediately, without conscious reasoning.
Grammar: Uncountable when talking about the general ability: 'She relies on intuition.' Not 'an intuition' in this sense.
Patterns
- rely on intuition
- trust your intuition
- by intuition
Good doctors combine medical knowledge with intuition.
He solved the puzzle by intuition rather than by careful analysis.
Her intuition told her to take the job, even though the pay was lower.
Word forms
| plural | intuitions |
|---|
Common combinations
- a strong intuition
- I had a strong intuition that we should leave early.
- trust your intuition
- When the facts are unclear, trust your intuition.
- an intuition about someone/something
- She had a strange intuition about the new neighbor.
- female intuition
- He joked that it was female intuition, but she had simply noticed the details.
Synonyms and how they differ
- hunch
- A hunch is a feeling that something is true, often based on a guess; it is more informal and less reliable than an intuition.
- instinct
- Instinct is a natural, automatic reaction, especially in animals; intuition is more about quiet understanding in people.
- gut feeling
- Gut feeling is very informal and means a strong intuition in your body; use it in casual conversation, not in academic writing.
Opposites
Word family
- intuitive adjective
- Based on feelings rather than facts; easy to understand without thinking.
- intuitively adverb
- In a way that uses intuition.
- intuit verb
- To know or understand something by intuition, without proof.
Commonly confused: an intuition or institution?
an intuition vs institution
Institution is an organization or a custom; intuition is a feeling. They sound a little similar but mean very different things.
Practice
She had ___ that the meeting would go badly, so she prepared extra notes.
Choose one answer.
'An intuition' is correct because 'intuition' starts with a vowel sound and we are talking about one specific feeling. 'An intuition' is wrong because 'a' is not used before a vowel sound. 'The intuition' would suggest a previously mentioned or shared intuition, which does not fit here. 'Intuition' without an article is possible in general statements, but here we need a countable singular form.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “an intuition”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.