Cognition

How to spell cognition

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce cognition

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cognition mean?

1. nounThe mental processes of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

Cognition in a sentence

• The study measured how sleep loss affects cognition in adults.

• Early diagnosis can slow the decline in cognition among patients.

Where does cognition come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin cognitio, a noun meaning 'a getting to know' or 'acquaintance', which was built on the verb cognoscere, 'to get to know' or 'to learn'. That verb combined the prefix co-, used here as an intensifier, with the old verb gnoscere, 'to know', and that gnoscere is a close relative of the Greek gignoskein and even of the plain English word 'know'. English took cognition in during the fifteenth century, partly through French and partly straight from the Latin, originally in legal and philosophical senses to do with knowledge and judgement. Over time it narrowed to its modern meaning, the mental processes of perceiving, thinking, and learning, which is why it is now at home in psychology and neuroscience. The silent 'g' before the 'n' is the spelling trap, and it survives precisely because the root gnoscere always carried that 'gn' cluster, the same one you can still see in 'recognise' and 'diagnosis'.

How the word is built

• co- (intensive, together)
• cogn- (from gnoscere: to know)
• -ition (noun-forming suffix)