Knows

How to spell knows

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce knows

What does knows mean?

1. verbHas knowledge of something, or is acquainted with someone, in the present tense for a single other person.

Knows in a sentence

• My accountant knows exactly which forms the tax office requires.

• She knows the quickest route to the airport from our office.

Where does knows come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the third person singular present form of the verb 'know', which descends from the Old English cnawan, meaning 'to recognise, perceive, or be acquainted with'. That verb traces back to a Proto-Germanic root and ultimately to an ancient Indo-European root gno-, meaning 'to know', the same deep source that gave Latin its noscere and Greek its gignoskein, and which surfaces in English borrowings like 'recognise', 'notice', and 'diagnosis'. The initial 'k' was once fully pronounced in Old and Middle English, so cnawan really did begin with a hard 'k' sound; English speakers stopped sounding that 'kn' cluster around the seventeenth century, leaving the silent 'k' that traps writers today. The spelling kept the historical 'k' even after the pronunciation dropped it, which is why 'knows' looks nothing like it sounds and is so easily confused with 'nose' and 'noes'. The plain 'w' inside the word likewise echoes the old final consonant of cnawan, frozen into the modern spelling.

How the word is built

• know (Germanic root cnawan: to recognise, be acquainted with)
• -s (third person singular present)

Words that sound like knows

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• nose: The part of the face above the mouth, used for breathing and smelling.