cognition

English

Etymology

From Middle English cognicion, cognicioun from Latin cognitiō (“knowledge, perception, a judicial examination, trial”), from cognitus, past participle of cognoscere (“to know”), from co- (“together”) + *gnoscere, older form of noscere (“to know”); see know, and compare cognize, cognizance, cognizor, cognosce, connoisseur.

Pronunciation

Noun

cognition (countable and uncountable, plural cognitions)

  1. The process of knowing, of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought and through the senses.
    Coordinate terms: thought, thinking (loosely synonymous); noesis
    human cognition
    social cognition
    cognition research
    Children develop cognition rapidly in their early years.
    The study focused on animal cognition.
    • 1838, Immanuel Kant, “Introduction. I. Of the Difference between Pure and Empirical Cognition.”, in [Francis Haywood], transl., Critick of Pure Reason […], London: William Pickering, →OCLC, page 3:
      That all our Cognition begins with Experience, there is not any doubt; for how otherwise should the faculty of cognition be awakened into exercise, if this did not occur through objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations, and partly bring our Understanding-capacity into action, to compare these, to connect, or to separate them, and in this way to work up the rude matter of sensible impressions into a cognition of objects, which is termed experience?
  2. (countable) A result of a cognitive process.
  3. (archaic) Knowledge; awareness.

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