Etimology
From Middle English knowen, from Old English cnāwan (“to know, perceive, recognise”), from Proto-West Germanic *knāan, from Proto-Germanic *knēaną (“to know”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (“to know”).
verb
know (third-person singular simple present knows, present participle knowing, simple past knew or (nonstandard) knowed, past participle known or (colloquial and nonstandard) knew)
(transitive) To perceive the truth or factuality of; to be certain of; to be certain that.
(intransitive) To be or become aware or cognizant.
(transitive) To be aware of; to be cognizant of.
(intransitive, obsolete) To be acquainted (with another person).
(transitive) To be acquainted or familiar with; to have encountered.
(transitive) To experience.
To understand or have a grasp of through experience or study.
(transitive) To be able to distinguish, to discern, particularly by contrast or comparison; to recognize the nature of.
(transitive) To recognize as the same (as someone or something previously encountered) after an absence or change.
(intransitive) To have knowledge; to have information, be informed.
(transitive) To be able to play or perform (a song or other piece of music).
(transitive) To have indexed and have information about within one's database.
(transitive, philosophy) To maintain (a belief, a position) subject to a given philosophical definition of knowledge; to hold a justified true belief.
Examples
Question things. I have the most fun when I'm writing questioning things that people do not question- the assumptions that everybody knows are true.
‘I know whether a boy is telling me the truth or not.’‘Thank you, sir.’Did he hell. They never bloody did.
I know that I’m right and you’re wrong.
He knew something terrible was going to happen.
Did you know Michelle and Jack were getting divorced? ― Yes, I knew.
‘A Gentleman!’ quoth the Squire, ‘who the Devil can he be? Do, Doctor, go down and ſee who ’tis. Mr. Blifil can hardly be come to town yet.—Go down, do, and know what his Buſineſs is.[’]
Did you know Michelle and Jack were getting divorced? ― Yes, I knew.
She knows where I live.
I knew he was upset, but I didn't understand why.
I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.
You, and I haue knowne ſir.
I know your mother, but I’ve never met your father.
I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I shall have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I had left New York for the West.
Marsha is my roommate. — I know Marsha. She is nice.Audio
Audio
AFterwarde the man knewe Heuáh his wife, which cõceiued & bare Káin, & ſaid, I haue obteined a man by yͤ Lord.
Now Gerald had never thought of her having a mother. Then there must have been a father, too, some time. And Miss Wilmarth existed because two people once had loved and known. It was not a thought to dwell upon.
Wait a second. Are you… attempting to know me?
Their relationship knew ups and downs.
The Truman family knew good times and bad, […].
Let me do it. I know how it works.
She knows how to swim.
His mother tongue is Italian, but he also knows French and English.
She knows chemistry better than anybody else.
Know your enemy and know yourself.
The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.
to know a person's face or figure
to know right from wrong
I wouldn't know one from the other.
Ye ſhall knowe them by their frutes.
The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.
Flares do not know friend from foe and so illuminate both. Changes in wind direction can result in flare exposure of the attacker while defenders hide in the shadows.
At nearer view he thought he knew the dead, / And call'd the wretched man to mind.
Ernest also is so much improved, that you would hardly know him: […].
It is vital that he not know.
She knew of our plan.
He knows about 19th century politics.
“My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”
Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.
Marsha knows.Audio
Audio
Do you know "Blueberry Hill"?
Mmm... Seems you searched for a name that we don't know, we'll send our trained monkeys to check what's in stock.
Related words
synonyms
(have sexual relations with): coitize, go to bed with, sleep with; see also Thesaurus:copulate with
hyponyms
grok
related terms
get to know
God knows
God only knows
in the know
it's not what you know but who you know
know about
know beans about
know better
know from
know inside and out
know like a book
know like the back of one's hand
know-nothing
know of
know one's ass from a hole in the ground
know one's own mind
know one's shit
know one's way around
know someone in the biblical sense
know which end is up
know which way is up
not know someone from Adam
the dear knows
noun
know (uncountable)
(rare) Knowledge; the state of knowing.
Knowledge; the state of knowing. (Now confined to the fixed phrase in the know.)
Examples
That on the view and know of theſe Contents, […] He ſhould the bearers put to […] death, […]
noun
know (plural knows)
Alternative form of knowe (“hill, knoll”)
Examples
Owing to increasing numbers and consequent want of room for nestage, the old birds drove away the younger ones, who took refuge in their present abode at Fox's Know, where they have been located about six years.
Etimology
You know, with the subject pronoun omitted.