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单词 know
释义

know

English

Alternative forms

  • knowe (obsolete)

Etymology

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”).

cognates
  • from Proto-Germanic: Scots knaw (“to know, recognise”), Icelandic kná (“to know, know how to, be able”), Old High German knājan (“to know, recognise”), Old Norse kná (“to know how”). Remotely related also Dutch and German kennen, West Frisian kenne (see English ken).
  • from Indo-European: Latin cognoscō (Spanish conocer, French connaître, Italian conoscere, Portuguese conhecer), Ancient Greek γνωρίζω (gnōrízō, “I know”) and γνῶσις (gnôsis, “knowledge”), Albanian njoh (“I know, recognise”), Russian знать (znatʹ, “to know”), Lithuanian žinoti (“to know”), and Persian شناختن‎ (šenāxtæn, “to know”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /nəʊ/
  • (US) enPR: nō, IPA(key): /noʊ/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Audio (UK)(file)
    ('to know')
  • Rhymes: -əʊ
  • Homophones: no, noh

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)

  1. (transitive) To perceive the truth or factuality of; to be certain of or that.
    • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, OCLC 59891543, page 35:
      ‘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.
  2. (transitive) To be aware of; to be cognizant of.
    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.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, OCLC 1650302, page 18:
      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.
  3. (transitive) To be acquainted or familiar with; to have encountered.
    I know your mother, but I’ve never met your father.
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698, page 1:
      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.
    • 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)
      Marsha is my roommate. — I know Marsha. She is nice.
      Audio (US)(file)
  4. (transitive) To experience.
    Their relationship knew ups and downs.
    • 1991, Irvin Haas, Historic Homes of the American Presidents, p.155:
      The Truman family knew good times and bad, […].
  5. (transitive) To be able to distinguish, to discern, particularly by contrast or comparison; to recognize the nature of.
    to know a person's face or figure
    to know right from wrong
    I wouldn't know one from the other.
    • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], OCLC 762018299, Matthew vij:[16], folio ix, recto:
      Ye ſhall knowe them by their frutes.
    • 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart; Avery Hopwood, “The Shadow of the Bat”, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, OCLC 20230794, page 6:
      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.
    • 1980, Armored and mechanized brigade operations, p.3−29:
      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.
  6. (transitive) To recognize as the same (as someone or something previously encountered) after an absence or change.
    • c. 1645–1688, Thomas Flatman, Translation of Part of Petronius Arbiter's Satyricon
      At nearer view he thought he knew the dead, / And call'd the wretched man to mind.
    • 1818, [Mary Shelley], chapter V, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, OCLC 830979744, page 115:
      Ernest also is so much improved, that you would hardly know him: […].
  7. To understand or have a grasp of through experience or study.
    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.
    • 2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
      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.
  8. (transitive, archaic, biblical) To have sexual relations with. This meaning normally specified in modern English as e.g. to ’know someone in the biblical sense’ or to ‘know Biblically.’
    • 1560, [William Whittingham et al., transl.], The Bible and Holy Scriptures Conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament. […] (the Geneva Bible), Geneva: […] Rouland Hall, OCLC 557472409, Genesis IIII:1, folio 2, verso:
      AFterwarde the man knewe Heuáh his wife, which cõceiued & bare Káin, & ſaid, I haue obteined a man by yͤ Lord.
    • 1939, Dorothy Parker, "Horsie," Here lies: The collected stories of Dorothy Parker:
      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.
    • 2003 May 11, Garland Testa; Gary McCarver, director, chapter 21, in Night and Deity (King of the Hill), season 7, 20th Century Fox, spoken by Dale Gribble (Johnny Hardwick), 19:37 from the start:
      Wait a second. Are you… attempting to know me?
  9. (intransitive) To have knowledge; to have information, be informed.
    It is vital that he not know.
    She knew of our plan.
    He knows about 19th century politics.
    • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 731476803, page 41:
      “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.”
    • 2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884:
      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.
    • 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)
      Marsha knows.
      Audio (US)(file)
  10. (intransitive) To be or become aware or cognizant.
    Did you know Michelle and Jack were getting divorced? ― Yes, I knew.
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, “A whimsical Adventure which befel the Squire, with the distressed Situation of ’’Sophia’’”, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume VI, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], OCLC 928184292, book XVI, page 7:
      ‘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.[’]
  11. (intransitive, obsolete) To be acquainted (with another person).
    • c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene vi], page 350, column 1:
      You, and I haue knowne ſir.
  12. (transitive) To be able to play or perform (a song or other piece of music).
    Do you know "Blueberry Hill"?

Usage notes

  • This is generally a stative verb that rarely takes the continuous inflection. See Category:English stative verbs
  • “Knowen” is found in some old texts as the past participle.
  • In some old texts, the form “know to [verb]” rather than “know how to [verb]” is found, e.g. Milton wrote: “he knew himself to sing, and build the lofty rhymes”.

Conjugation

Conjugation of know
infinitive(to) know
present tensepast tense
1st-person singular know knew
2nd-person singular know, knowest† knew, knewest†
3rd-person singular knows, knoweth† knew
plural know
subjunctive know knew
imperative know —
participles knowing known

†Archaic or obsolete.

Quotations

  • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene i], page 128, column 1:
    O that a man might know / The end of this dayes buſineſſe, ere it come: / But it ſufficeth, that the day will end, / And then the end is knowne.
  • 1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Light of Stars”, in Voices of the Night, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, OCLC 877448942, page 13:
    O fear not in a world like this, / And thou shalt know ere long, / Know how sublime a thing it is, / To suffer and be strong.
  • 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:
    The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.

Synonyms

  • (have sexual relations with): coitize, go to bed with, sleep with; see also Thesaurus:copulate with

Hyponyms

  • grok

Derived terms

Terms derived from know (verb)
  • acknow
  • all-knowing
  • as far as one knows
  • as you know
  • beknow
  • better the devil you know (than the devil you don't (know); than the one you don't (know)
  • do I know you
  • don't I know it
  • do you know
  • do you know who I am
  • foreknow
  • get to know
  • heaven knows
  • hell if I know
  • ICYDK
  • IDK
  • I'd like to know
  • I don't know
  • if you know what I mean
  • I know
  • I know you are but what am I
  • interknow
  • it's not what you know but who you know
  • it takes one to know one
  • I want to know
  • kneweth
  • knowability
  • knowable
  • know-all
  • know beans about
  • know better
  • knowbie
  • knowbot
  • knower
  • know every trick in the book
  • know from a bar of soap
  • know-how
  • knowingly
  • know inside (and) out
  • know-it-all
  • know-it-allery
  • knowledge
  • know like a book
  • know like the back/palm of one's hand
  • know no bounds
  • Know-Nothing
  • know-nothing
  • know of
  • know one's ass from a hole in the ground/from one's elbow
  • know one's head from a hole in the ground
  • know one's mind
  • know one's onions
  • know one's own mind
  • know one's shit
  • know one's stuff
  • know one's way around
  • know shit from Shinola
  • knowsome
  • know someone
  • know someone from a can of paint
  • know someone from Adam
  • know someone in the biblical sense
  • know someone when
  • know something backwards
  • know the difference between one's ass and a hole in the ground/and one's elbow
  • know the score
  • know thyself
  • know what
  • know what is what
  • know what one is about
  • know what one is doing
  • know what's what
  • know where one stands
  • know where the bodies are buried
  • know which end is up
  • know which side one's bread is buttered on
  • know which way is up
  • let know
  • need-to-know
  • not know one is born
  • not know what hit one
  • not know whether one is coming or going
  • not know whether to shit/spit or go blind
  • takes one to know one
  • that's for me to know and you to find out
  • the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know
  • the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing
  • the nose knows
  • unknow
  • unknowable
  • unknown
  • whaddayaknow
  • what do I know
  • what do you know
  • wouldn't you know (it)
  • y'know, yaknow
  • you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows
  • you know
  • you know it
  • you know what I mean
  • you know what they say
  • you know what, you-know-what
  • you-know-who
  • you never know
  • you never know what you've got till it's gone
  • 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

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun

know (plural knows)

  1. (rare) Knowledge; the state of knowing.
    • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene ii], page 259, column 2:
      That on the view and know of theſe Contents, […] He ſhould the bearers put to […] death, […]
  2. Knowledge; the state of knowing; now confined to the fixed phrase ‘in the know’

Derived terms

  • in the know

References

  • know in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
  • know in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Anagrams

  • Kwon, wonk

Cornish

Etymology

From Proto-Brythonic *know, from Proto-Celtic *knūs.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [knoʊ]

Noun

know pl (singulative knowen or knofen)

  1. nuts

Derived terms

  • know dor (“peanuts”)
  • know Frynk (“walnuts”)
  • know koko (“coconuts”)
  • know koll (“hazelnuts”)
  • know muskat (“nutmeg”)
  • know toos (“doughnuts”)
  • plisk know (“nutshells”)

Mutation

  Mutation of know  
Cornish consonant mutation
unmutatedsoftaspiratehardmixedmixed after 'th
knowgnowhnowunchangedunchangedunchanged

Middle English

Noun

know

  1. Alternative form of kne

Yola

Verb

know

  1. Alternative form of knouth
    • 1867, GLOSSARY OF THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY:
      Doost thou know fidi is a hamaron?
      Do you know where is the horse-collar?

References

  • Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 44
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