Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Conscious knowledge or recognition; awareness.
  • noun The range of what one can know or understand.
  • noun Observance; notice.
  • noun Law Acknowledgment, recognition, or jurisdiction; the assumption of jurisdiction in a case.
  • noun Heraldry A crest or badge worn to distinguish the bearer.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Knowledge or notice; perception; observation: now chiefly in the phrase take cognizance.
  • noun In law: The exercise of jurisdiction; a taking of authoritative notice, as of a cause.
  • noun Acknowledgment; admission, as a plea admitting the fact alleged in the declaration; a fine sur conusance de droit.
  • noun A plea in replevin, that defendant holds the goods in the right of another as his bailiff or servant. See avowry.
  • noun Any badge borne to facilitate recognition.
  • noun In heraldry, the armorial surcoat, or the crest, when worn, as being the only means by which a man in complete armor could be recognized.
  • noun Also spelled cognisance.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Apprehension by the understanding; perception; observation.
  • noun Recollection; recognition.
  • noun engraving, engraving, engraving, engraving Jurisdiction, or the power given by law to hear and decide controversies.
  • noun engraving, engraving, engraving, engraving The hearing a matter judicially.
  • noun engraving, engraving, engraving An acknowledgment of a fine of lands and tenements or confession of a thing done.
  • noun engraving A form of defense in the action of replevin, by which the defendant insists that the goods were lawfully taken, as a distress, by defendant, acting as servant for another.
  • noun The distinguishing mark worn by an armed knight, usually upon the helmet, and by his retainers and followers: Hence, in general, a badge worn by a retainer or dependent, to indicate the person or party to which he belonged; a token by which a thing may be known.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An emblem, badge or device, used as a distinguishing mark by the body of retainers of a royal or noble house.
  • noun Notice or awareness.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun range of what one can know or understand
  • noun range or scope of what is perceived
  • noun having knowledge of

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English conissaunce, from Old French conoissance, from connoistre, to know, from Latin cognōscere, to learn; see cognition.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Equivalent to cognize +‎ -ance

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Examples

  • Clearly, under the law, the agency that has cognizance is the NBDB.

    On the Great Book Blockade of 2009 (Updated 7 May) (with BDAP Paper) « BAHAY TALINHAGA 2009

  • However, we have here much the same management of Paul's case as we had in the foregoing chapter; cognizance is here taken of it, I.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume VI (Acts to Revelation) 1721

  • The first who came under his cognizance was a poor fellow just freed of a fever, which bad weakened him so much that he could hardly stand.

    The Adventures of Roderick Random 2004

  • Gnosis expresses the idea of cognizance by intuition, 771-m.

    Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Albert Pike 1850

  • It is also the number of the _gnosis_, a word adopted in lieu of _Science_, and expressing only the idea of cognizance by intuition.

    Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Albert Pike 1850

  • The first who came under his cognizance was a poor fellow just freed of a fever, which bad weakened him so much that he could hardly stand.

    The Adventures of Roderick Random Tobias George Smollett 1746

  • But I tell you those that will do so, and that will not make restitution when they have done wrong, or taken away their neighbor's goods, they are not in the livery of Christ, they are not his servants; let them go as they will in this world, yet for all that they are foul and filthy enough before God; they stink before His face; and therefore they shall be cast from His presence into everlasting fire; this shall be all their good cheer that they shall have, because they have not the livery of Christ, nor His cognizance, which is love.

    The World's Great Sermons, Volume 01 Basil to Calvin Grenville Kleiser 1910

  • The lesson is that the government's jurisdiction ("cognizance") over the church is limited, as civil government is without authority to actively support (or interfere with internal matters of) organized religion, all to the mutual benefit of church and state.

    Archive 2008-04-01 Mary L. Dudziak 2008

  • "Foi!" said Mr. Latz, by way of -- somewhat unduly perhaps -- expressing his own kind of cognizance of the scented trail.

    The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story Various 1915

  • Any kind of cognizance of an indescribable excess in the joy of the bath, any kind of ardour or thirst which perpetually impels the soul out of night into the morning, and out of gloom, out of "affliction" into clearness, brightness, depth, and refinement: -- just as much as such a tendency DISTINGUISHES -- it is a noble tendency -- it also

    Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 1872

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