Word.ws English Dictionary

recognisance

recognisance is the alternative spelling of recognizance.

Meaning of recognizance

Noun

recognizance (countable and uncountable, plural recognizances)

  1. A form of bail; a promise made by the accused to the court that they will attend all required judicial proceedings and will not engage in further illegal activity or other prohibited conduct as set by the court.
    • The defendant was released on his own recognizance.
    Synonyms:
    recog
  2. A token; a symbol; a pledge.
    • That recognizance and pledge of love / Which I first gave her.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  3. An acknowledgment of a person or thing; an avowal; a profession; a recognition.

Forms of recognisance

pluralrecognisances

Questions about recognisance

What is recognisance the alternative spelling of?
Recognisance is the alternative spelling of recognizance.

Words near recognisance in the dictionary

  1. recognin
  2. recognins
  3. recognisability
  4. recognisable
  5. recognisably
  6. recognisance
  7. recognisances
  8. recognise
  9. recogniseable
  10. recognised
  11. recognisee

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: recognisance (page history and authors); recognizance (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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Cite this entry: “recognisance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/recognisance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.