[f. KNOW v. + -ER1.] One who knows (in senses of the vb.).
1382. Wyclif, Job xvi. 20. Forsothe in heuene is my witness; am I knowere of myself in heiȝtis?
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, 449. Ye beste lapidary and knower of stones that was in all the world.
1575–85. Abp. Sandys, Serm. (Parker Soc.), 122. I will not be a knower, but a doer of thy law.
1681. Temple, Mem., III. Wks. 1731, I. 334. The pretending Knowers among them,… pretended now to know nothing of it.
c. 1728. Earl of Ailesbury, Mem. (1890), 277. An honest man, but no knower of men.
1881. P. Brooks, Serm., 88. Like the knowledge of the rocks or the stars, something quite independent of moral conditions in the knower.
† b. One who has or takes cognizance, a judge (L. cognitor). Obs.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., IV. pr. iv. 100 (Camb. MS.). Yif thow weere … yset a Iuge or a knowere of thinges, trowestow þat men sholden tormenten hym þat hath don the wrong or elles hym þat bath suffred the wrong?
1581. Styward, Mart. Discipl., I. 65. God is the knower and determiner.
