a. [ad. L. type cognitīv-us, f. cognit-, see above, -IVE.] Of or pertaining to cognition, or to the action or process of knowing; having the attribute of cognizing.
1586. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., I. (1594), 22. Plato saith, that there are three vertues in the soule belonging to knowledge and understanding … called cognitive or knowing vertues: namely, reason, understanding, and phantasie.
1692. South, Serm. (1697), I. 260. Unless the Understanding imploy and exercise its cognitive, or Apprehensive Power.
1803. Edin. Rev., I. 257. A minute analysis of the cognitive powers of man.
1836–7. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph. (1865), I. 227. The two acts, severally cognitive of mind and matter.
1850. McCosh, Div. Govt. (1852), 258. The simple cognitive faculties, which give us the knowledge of really existing individual objects; as Perception … Self-consciousness.
