cognoscenti
Americanplural noun
-
cognoscente
singular
plural noun
Etymology
Origin of cognoscenti
1770–80; < Italian, Latinized variant of conoscente (present participle of conoscere to know) < L. See cognition, -ent
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Despite the beacon, only Hanoi’s cà phê cognoscenti seek out this snug shop furnished with four short tables and a small counter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 17, 2026
Once just 'the lads with the brushes', their physicality has evolved the position to the extent that the curling cognoscenti consider it to now be "a sweeping game" rather than a throwing one.
From BBC ● Feb. 20, 2026
As with previous events at LA-LA Land, the opening attracted rockers, drag queens and club world cognoscenti.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2026
Mair, Foster Bodorff and three other local tree cognoscenti formed a semicircle around Van Pelt’s Paul Bunyanesque figure, with a bushy beard once bright red turned white.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 1, 2023
And at last she wrote her absent lover a missive that has been numbered by cognoscenti among the great love letters of the ages.
From Superwomen by Albert Payson Terhune
But if you’re a pizza cognoscente, or even a bread baker, you’ll recognize that this tomato pie is the work of cooks who are punctilious about their dough.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 3, 2023
“For the past 35 years, I have been focused, singularly, on becoming a cognoscente, on knowing everything possible about the classical arts,” Munday said.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 27, 2019
Liz Goldwyn is, in fact, a film-world royal — her grandfather was the Hollywood kingpin Samuel Goldwyn — not to mention a fashion-world darling and an art-world cognoscente.
From New York Times ● Jan. 12, 2014
Whether it's intuition or a great eye, her ability to connect with her buyer--generally a fashion cognoscente with a taste for understated glamour--appears to be unerring.
From Time Magazine Archive
He was one of those trim and proper creatures that seemed to haunt Wordsworth societies, welfare meetings, and other culture areas known only to the cognoscente and stern-eyed Eastern aunts.
From Bat Wing Bowles by Dane Coolidge
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
