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:
Soccer cognoscenti describe his economy of movement, the intelligence of his runs, the subtlety of his touch.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
The research lab was already known to Silicon Valley cognoscenti for having invented a personal computer called the Alto and the precursor to the Ethernet networking system.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 24, 2026
The curling cognoscenti reckon six wins in the nine round-robin games could be enough to earn a place in Monday's last four, and the GB duo are well on the way.
From BBC ● Feb. 6, 2026
When 23-year-old vocalist Samara Joy wowed the crowd at Seattle’s Jazz Alley last June, she was not widely known beyond the jazz cognoscenti.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 14, 2023
I think I observed that amongst these cognoscenti there was scarcely one to whom the delicacy of taste did not daily prove a source of more pain than pleasure.
From Tales and Novels — Volume 04 by Maria Edgeworth
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.
