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Is It Grammatically Correct to Say as per?
Many wonder whether the as in as per is superfluous. Wouldn’t the phrase “per your instructions” mean much the same thing as “as per your instructions?” In that case, would it be incorrect to insert the extra word?
The fact is that both per and as per have existed in English in the sense “according to” for a very long time–since the 15th and 16th centuries, respectively. The choice of which to use (or avoid) is entirely a matter of taste. The more ponderous as per is often found in business and legal prose, or in writing that attempts to adopt a formal tone. It is not incorrect to use, but some find it overly legalistic and counsel avoiding it for that reason. On the other hand, it has been used to good effect in facetious mock-business-English (“as per the President’s shiny new Environmental Policy Act”). As in so many matters of diction, the tonal needs of a particular passage should guide your choice.
Examples of as per in a Sentence
Madeleine Marr, Miami Herald, 19 Aug. 2025
The Hindi film War 2 and the Tamil film Coolie scored big over their first weekend to rank among top films worldwide as per Comscore.
—Sweta Kaushal, Forbes.com, 19 Aug. 2025
The official synopsis for Eddington, as per A24, reads:
In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.
—Billie Melissa, MSNBC Newsweek, 14 Aug. 2025
When the new Premier League season starts tomorrow evening, many of the world’s best players will embark on an 11-month season that will finish at next summer’s World Cup, the old-fashioned one but with 48 teams and 104 games, not 32 and 64, as per recent editions.
—Matt Slater, New York Times, 14 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for as per
Cite this Entry
“As per.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/as%20per. Accessed 29 Aug. 2025.
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