cognition
noun
Simple meaning
Knowing, of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought and through the senses.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kahgnishuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kɑɡˈnɪʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The process of knowing, of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought and through the senses.
countable
A result of a cognitive process.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The process of knowing, of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought and through the senses.
Used this way, cognition is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use cognition
- “Scientists are studying human cognition to understand how we think.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.