reconnoitre
Americanverb (used with or without object)
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of reconnoitre
C18: from obsolete French reconnoître to inspect, explore; see recognize
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:
He was headed, generally, for Lake Superior, and would reconnoitre once he got to Lake Michigan.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 29, 2018
The Sunni caliph Mansur, whose new empire stretched from India to the Atlantic, sailed up and down the Tigris to reconnoitre a place for his home.
From Economist ● Jun. 12, 2014
President Coolidge, through the War Department, ordered Army planes to reconnoitre from Boston, but their work was delayed by fogs.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
The planes reconnoitre and threaten, the people fear.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
The silence of the Tuscarora was somewhat embarrassing to Ralph; and he again went towards the loop-holes to reconnoitre the present position of the enemy.
From The Frontiersmen by Gustave Aimard
The citation for temporary Lieutenant Robert Hastings read: "He personally reconnoitred the approach to the position under very severe rifle and machine-gun fire."
From BBC ● Nov. 11, 2018
Dubbed Little Nellie, the machine enabled Bond, played by Sean Connery, to fight off a helicopter attack as he reconnoitred a Spectre base hidden in a Japanese volcano.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2013
Exactly a century ago State surveyors reconnoitred a rail route over Pennsylvania's forested ridges between Chambersburg and Pittsburgh.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
Then they issued into the evening streets, reconnoitred in restaurants, newsstands, dance halls, bars.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
Then they shouldered their muskets and reconnoitred the island.
From Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast by Samuel Adams Drake
Erisso's daughter Anna, meanwhile, finds herself torn between familial and patriotic loyalties and her attraction to Maometto, whom she had fallen in love with when he was reconnoitring Greece in disguise.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 10, 2013
He became active last year as an oratorical scout, reconnoitring British public opinion in advance of the isolationist policies formally adopted by His Majesty's Government last week .
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
By last week, instead of marching, U. S. business was generally marking time, with only a few industries pushing ahead like scouts reconnoitring in enemy territory.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
After a moment's wary reconnoitring, I crept forward again along the ditch, eyes fastened on the dim shape ahead, a human form lying in the black shadows of the road.
From Cardigan by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
I speculated silently on the sight, much doubting whether they belonged to human beings or to wild beasts; but, on carefully reconnoitring, I discovered that they belonged to three huge women.
From The Captive in Patagonia by Benjamin Franklin Bourne
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.