cognize
/ˈkɒɡnʌɪz/US/ˈkɑɡˌnaɪz/
cognize verb: to know, perceive, or become aware of.
Verb
cognize (third-person singular simple present cognizes, present participle cognizing, simple past and past participle cognized)
- To know, perceive, or become aware of.
- [T]hey must possess organs of sight—some method of cognizing their environment—akin to that of vision in man.1934, George Henry Weiss, The Mentanicals
- To make into an object of cognition (the process of acquiring knowledge through thought); to cogitate.
- Cognizing about mind is a ubiquitous human activity; we consistently construe each other as agents undertaking intentional action based on our underlying beliefs and desires (and not as "bags of skin stuffed into pieces of cloth")2011, Usha Goswami, The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development
- “Thinking a lot” also involves other types of cognizing as well, such as cognizing about depressive themes such as being left by a wife for another man or being separated from relatives.2015, Devon E. Hinton, Byron J. Good, Culture and PTSD: Trauma in Global and Historical Perspective
Forms of cognize
| third-person singular present | cognizes |
|---|---|
| present participle | cognizing |
| past participle | cognized |
| past | cognized |
| alternative form | cognise |
Origin of cognize
Back-formation from cognizance.
Words formed from cognize
Questions about cognize
- What does cognize mean?
- Cognize means to know, perceive, or become aware of.
- What part of speech is cognize?
- Cognize is a verb.
- How do you pronounce cognize?
- Cognize is pronounced /ˈkɑɡˌnaɪz/ (US).
- What is the past tense of cognize?
- The past tense of cognize is cognized.
Words near cognize in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cognize (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cognize.wav.
Cite this entry: “cognize.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cognize. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
