alone vs per se

alone

adv
  • By oneself; apart from, or exclusive of, others; solo. 

  • Not requiring anything further; merely. 

  • Without outside help. 

  • Used to emphasize the size or extent of something by selecting a subset. 

  • Not permitting anything further; exclusively. 

adj
  • By oneself, solitary. 

  • Lacking peers who share one's beliefs, experiences, practices, etc. 

per se

adv
  • Being a thing that posits itself and is a principle of its own determination. 

  • Without determination by or involvement of extraneous factors; by its very nature. 

  • In a true or literal sense; as one would expect from the name or description. 

  • Not leaving discretion to the judge to take into account additional factors that could rebut the judgment, deriving the qualification from the statute. 

adj
  • Positing itself and being a principle of its own determination. 

How often have the words alone and per se occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )