In 5–6 -icio(u)n, -ycyo(u)n. [ad. L. cognitiōn-em a getting to know, acquaintance, notion, knowledge, etc., sb. of action f. L. cognit-, ppl. stem of cognōscĕre: see COGNOSCE.]
† 1. The action or faculty of knowing; knowledge, consciousness; acquaintance with a subject. Obs. exc. as in 2.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys (1835), 154. Illumynyd she is wyth clere cognycyoun In hyr soule.
1528. Lyndesay, Dream, 577. Filicitie they had Inuariabyll, And of his Godhed cleir cognitioun.
1604. T. Wright, Passions, V. 237. With conscience and perfit cognition of innocencie.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., V. ii. 63. I will not be my selfe, nor haue cognition Of what I feele.
1682. Sir T. Browne, Chr. Mor. (1756), 106. A retrograde cognition of times past.
1796. Burney, Mem. Metastasio, II. 388. Tasting the first aliments of scientific cognition.
b. Apprehension, perception. (nonce-use.)
1822. Lamb, Elia, Ser. I. iii. (1865), 34. In thy cognition of some poignant jest.
2. Philos. The action or faculty of knowing taken in its widest sense, including sensation, perception, conception, etc., as distinguished from feeling and volition; also, more specifically, the action of cognizing an object in perception proper.
1651. Stanley, Poems, 231. This Divines call intellectual intuitive cognition.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., IV. iii. § 6. Finding not Cognition within the natural Powers of Matter.
1847. Lewes, Hist. Philos. (1867), I. Introd. 113. A faculty of cognition a priori.
1879. Adamson, Philos. Kant, 45. The several elements which, according to Kant, make up the organic unity of Perception or real Cognition.
b. A product of such an action: a sensation, perception, notion, or higher intuition.
1819. Shelley, Peter Bell III., 473, note. Peter’s progenitor … seems to have possessed a ‘pure anticipated cognition’ of the nature and modesty of this ornament of his posterity.
1856. Meiklejohn, trans. Kant’s Krit. P. R., 79. The fact that we do possess scientific a priori cognitions, namely, those of pure mathematics and general physics.
1881. J. H. Stirling, Text-bk. Kant, 468. Let a cognition be intellectually what it may, it is no cognition proper, it is not properly Knowledge, unless and until it have an actual perceptive application.
1885. H. Spencer, Princ. Psychol., I. III. viii. 369. With purely intellectual cognitions … also with … moral cognitions.
3. Law. = COGNIZANCE 3. (Chiefly Sc.)
1523. in W. H. Turner, Select Rec. Oxf., 35. Ye … Chauncellor … shall have … full cognition of all … causes.
1581. Savile, Agric. (1622), 203. To the rest belonged cognition of criminal causes.
1609. Skene, Reg. Maj., 12. Incontinent cognition or tryal sall be taken be the assise.
1689. trans. Buchanan’s De Jure Regni, 32. Obnoxious to the cognition of Judges.
1876. Grant, Burgh Sch. Scotl., II. v. 198. The council … appoint a committee to take cognition of the matter.
b. Sc. Law. † A process in the Court of Session for the determination of cases concerning disputed marches. Cognition and sale: a process for obtaining a warrant to sell the whole or a part of a pupil’s estate. Cognition and sasine: a form of entering an heir in burgage tenure.
a. 1809. Scotch Dict., in Tomlins, Law Dict., Cognition, is the process whereby molestation is determined.
1868. Act 31 & 32 Vict., c. 101 § 46. An instrument of cognition and sasine in regard to such lands and in favour of such heir.
† 4. Recognition; gratitude. Obs. rare.
1655. Evelyn, Lett., in Mem. (1807), IV. 7. I must justifie … with infinite cognition, the benefit I have received.
