presque vu
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Borrowed from French presque (“almost”) + vu (“seen”).
Noun[edit]
presque vu (uncountable)
- (psychology) Failure to remember something, with the sense that recall is imminent.
- 1961, Joseph Heller, Catch-22:
- The subtle, recurring confusion between illusion and reality that was characteristic of paramnesia fascinated the chaplain, and he knew a number of things about it. He knew, for example, that it was called paramnesia, and he was interested as well in such corollary optical phenomena as jamais vu, never seen, and presque vu, almost seen.
- 2012, Stephen King, 11/22/63, p. 784-5:
- A psychologist might have termed it presque vu—the sense people sometimes get that something amazing is about to happen—but my name for it was much more humble: a harmony.