cognizance

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Notice or awareness.

   Poor Lady Rotheles was really so imprudent on the late occasion of her niece's elopement as to go into a passion, and to utter such a tirade against her, her lord was roused from his habitual, but not natural listlessness, and became, in consequence, master of sentiments and secrets hitherto most commendably concealed from his cognizance.

2. 2
   noun

   having knowledge of

3. 3
   noun

   range or scope of what is perceived

4. 4
   noun

   range of what one can know or understand

From Middle English conysaunce, from Old French conysance (“recognition," later, "knowledge”), from Old French conoissance (“acquaintance, recognition; knowledge, wisdom”), from conoistre (“to know”), from Latin cognōscō (“know”), from con- (“with”) + gnōscō (“know”). By surface analysis, cogniz(e) (a back-formation) + -ance.

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