Recognition

How to spell recognition

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce recognition

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does recognition mean?

1. nounThe act of identifying someone or something already known or seen before.
2. nounPublic acknowledgement or appreciation of a person's achievement or worth.

Recognition in a sentence

• The new phone unlocks using facial recognition.

• The award was long overdue recognition for her years of research.

• She gave no sign of recognition when her old colleague walked in.

• The volunteers deserve far more recognition for their work.

Where does recognition come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Recognition descends from the Latin verb recognoscere, which meant 'to know again, to recall, or to examine'. That verb was built from re-, meaning 'again', and cognoscere, meaning 'to come to know', which itself joined com- (an intensifying 'thoroughly') with the old root gnoscere, 'to know'. The noun form recognitio carried the sense of a review or inspection, and English borrowed the word in the fifteenth century, at first for the formal acknowledgement or examination of something. Over time the meaning broadened to cover both identifying a familiar face or thing and granting someone deserved credit. The buried 'g' that makes the word a spelling trap is no accident: it preserves that ancient gnoscere root, the very same root that survives in 'cognition', 'incognito', and 'reconnaissance'.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• cogn (know, from Latin cognoscere)
• -ition (noun-forming suffix)