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:
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
It was designed by Pininfarina with bodywork by Scaglietti, both names immediately recognizable to Ferrari cognoscenti.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 16, 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
In the 1730s, as Handel’s London audiences gradually broadened into the middle class from the aristocracy, they lost much of their interest in his Italian-language operas, which had thrilled the cognoscenti for years.
From New York Times ● Mar. 13, 2023
What a pity it is that I shan't have the chance to use it, but you and the cognoscenti can fight it out together.
From The Gates of Chance by Van Tassel Sutphen
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
On Roman habits and pastimes and the gullibility of the English cognoscente he speaks with more spice of authority.
From Travels through France and Italy by T. (Tobias) Smollett
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.
