recognition

[ rek-uhg-nish-uhn ]
See synonyms for recognition on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. an act of recognizing or the state of being recognized.

  2. the identification of something as having been previously seen, heard, known, etc.

  1. the perception of something as existing or true; realization.

  2. the acknowledgment of something as valid or as entitled to consideration: the recognition of a claim.

  3. the acknowledgment of achievement, service, merit, etc.

  4. the expression of this in the form of some token of appreciation: This promotion constitutes our recognition of her exceptional ability.

  5. formal acknowledgment conveying approval or sanction.

  6. acknowledgment of right to be heard or given attention: The chairman refused recognition to any delegate until order could be restored.

  7. Psychology. the act or process of retrieving information previously encoded and stored in memory, when cued with the targeted information itself: The paper studies the effect of storytelling on English learners’ recognition of vocabulary words.: Compare recall (def. 9), retrieval (def. 3).

  8. International Law. an official act by which one state acknowledges the existence of another state or government, or of belligerency or insurgency.

  9. the automated conversion of information, as words or images, into a form that can be processed by a machine, especially a computer or computerized device.: Compare optical character recognition, pattern recognition.

  10. Biochemistry. the responsiveness of one substance to another based on the reciprocal fit of a portion of their molecular shapes.

Origin of recognition

1
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English recognicion, either from Old French or directly from Latin recognitiōn- (stem of recognitiō ), equivalent to recognit(us) (past participle of recognōscere; see recognize) + -iōn- -ion

Other words for recognition

Other words from recognition

  • rec·og·ni·tion·al, adjective
  • re·cog·ni·tive [ri-kog-ni-tiv], /rɪˈkɒg nɪ tɪv/, re·cog·ni·to·ry [ri-kog-ni-tawr-ee], /rɪˈkɒg nɪˌtɔr i/, adjective
  • pre·rec·og·ni·tion, noun
  • un·re·cog·ni·to·ry, adjective

Words Nearby recognition

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use recognition in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for recognition

recognition

/ (ˌrɛkəɡˈnɪʃən) /


noun
  1. the act of recognizing or fact of being recognized

  2. acceptance or acknowledgment of a claim, duty, fact, truth, etc

  1. a token of thanks or acknowledgment

  2. formal acknowledgment of a government or of the independence of a country

  3. mainly US and Canadian an instance of a chairman granting a person the right to speak in a deliberative body, debate, etc

Origin of recognition

1
C15: from Latin recognitiō, from recognoscere to know again, from re- + cognoscere to know, ascertain

Derived forms of recognition

  • recognitive (rɪˈkɒɡnɪtɪv) or recognitory, adjective

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for recognition

recognition

In diplomacy, the act by which one nation acknowledges that a foreign government is a legitimate government and exchanges diplomats with it. The withholding of recognition is a way for one government to show its disapproval of another.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.