Recognizing

How to spell recognizing

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce recognizing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does recognizing mean?

1. verbIdentifying someone or something already known, or formally acknowledging a fact or status.

Recognizing in a sentence

• Recognizing her old colleague across the crowded platform, she waved at once.

• The new software is surprisingly good at recognizing faces in blurry photographs.

Where does recognizing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb cognoscere, meaning 'to get to know' or 'to become acquainted with', which itself was built from the prefix co- (a strengthening 'together, thoroughly') and gnoscere, an old root meaning 'to know'. Latin formed recognoscere by adding re- 'again', so the literal sense was 'to know again' or 'to recall something already known'. The word travelled into English through Old French reconoistre during the 1400s, at first carrying legal and formal meanings such as 'to acknowledge' or 'to admit a claim'. Over time the everyday meaning settled on identifying something or someone you have encountered before. The same gnoscere root quietly survives in relatives such as 'cognition', 'incognito', and 'notice', and that hidden 'g', pronounced lightly but always written, is exactly the letter writers forget when they slip and put 'reconizing'.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• cogn (from Latin cognoscere: to know)
• -ize (verb-forming suffix)
• -ing (present participle)

British and American spelling

Recognizing is the American spelling. British English spells it recognising.