recognize

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛkəɡnaɪz/
• (sometimes proscribed) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛkənaɪz/

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Borrowed from Old French reconoistre, from Latin recognoscere, first attested in the 16th century. Displaced native English acknow (“to recognize, perceive as”), compare German erkennen and Swedish erkänna.

• recognise (non-Oxford British spelling)

recognize (third-person singular simple present recognizes, present participle recognizing, simple past and past participle recognized) (North American and Oxford British spelling)

1. (transitive) To match something or someone which one currently perceives to a memory of some previous encounter with the same entity.
   • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars, Chapter I,

     He looked in vain into the stalls for the butcher who had sold fresh meat twice a week, on market days, and he felt a genuine thrill of pleasure when he recognized the red bandana turban of old Aunt Lyddy, the ancient negro woman who had sold him gingerbread and fried fish, and told him weird tales of witchcraft and conjuration, in the old days when, as an idle boy, he had loafed about the market-house.

2. (transitive) To acknowledge the existence or legality of something; treat as valid or worthy of consideration.

   The US and a number of EU countries are expected to recognize Kosovo on Monday.

3. (transitive) To acknowledge or consider as something. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
4. (transitive) To realize or discover the nature of something; apprehend quality in; realize or admit that.
   • 2013 May-June, Katrina G. Claw, “Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3:

     In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.

5. (transitive) To give an award. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
6. To show appreciation of.

   to recognize services by a testimonial

7. (obsolete) To review; to examine again.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of South to this entry?)

8. (obsolete) To reconnoiter.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of R. Monro to this entry?)

9. (immunology) To have the property to bind to specific antigens.

From re- +‎ cognize.

• re-cognize

recognize (third-person singular simple present recognizes, present participle recognizing, simple past and past participle recognized) (North American and Oxford British spelling)

1. to cognize again