Word.ws English Dictionary

praecognita

praecognita noun: things previously known, or which should be known in order to understand something else.

Noun

praecognita pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only, rare) Things previously known, or which should be known in order to understand something else.
    • It having been the common received Opinion amongſt Men of Letters, that Maxims were the foundations of all Knowledge; and that the Sciences were each of them built upon certain præcognita, […]1689, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Menston, U.K.: Scolar Press, published 1970, page 323
    • It is not true that we have either innate ideas or moral instincts that impel us to a love of virtue; for in such cases the most savage tribes among mankind would be the most virtuous; their præcognita, or innate ideas, being but little disturbed by foreign ideas, acquired by education or extensive...1826, John Mason Good, The Book of Nature, volume 3, London: Longman, page 205

Forms of praecognita

alternative formpræcognita

Origin of praecognita

From Latin praecognitus, past participle of praecognoscere (“to foreknow”). See pre- and cognition.

Questions about praecognita

What does praecognita mean?
Praecognita means things previously known, or which should be known in order to understand something else.
What part of speech is praecognita?
Praecognita is a noun.

Words near praecognita in the dictionary

  1. praecipe
  2. praecipes
  3. praecipuum
  4. praecoces
  5. praecocial
  6. praecognita
  7. praecoma
  8. praeconise
  9. praeconised
  10. praeconises
  11. praeconising

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: praecognita (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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