Perusing
/pəˈruː.zɪŋ/ (note: commonly mispronounced as implying casual reading; the correct cognitive referent is exhaustive examination, which makes the mispronunciation funnier)v. trans.Bureaucratic
Etymology
From Middle English perusen (to use up thoroughly, to examine to the point of completion) + -ing; the irony of its common misuse to mean 'skim' is preserved here as a documented feature of the Claude Code UX literature, where it is deployed with cheerful inaccuracy
Definition
Claude's thorough, methodical examination of a document, codebase, or context window, characterized by the model reading every token with the grave attentiveness of a solicitor reviewing a will. In practice, this state lasts between 1.2 and 40 seconds and produces the same output either way.
Diagram
┌────────────────────┐ │ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ │ <- page 1 of 847 │ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ │ │ [Claude reads all] │ │ [of it. Trust me.] │ └────────────────────┘
Usage
"The model was observed perusing the 84,000-token legal document for approximately 2.7 seconds before summarizing it as 'complicated but fine,' a characterization that was later disputed in arbitration." - 'Confidence Calibration in Long-Context Legal Review Tasks', preprint, 2024