English
know
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /nəʊ/
  • (America) enPR: nō, IPA: /noʊ/
  • (Australia) IPA: [nəʉ]
Etymology 1

From Middle English knowen, from Old English cnāwan, from Proto-West Germanic *knāan, from Proto-Germanic *knēaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃-.

  • from Proto-Germanic: Scots knaw, Icelandic kná, Old High German knājan, Old Norse kná.
  • from Indo-European: Latin gnoscō, Latin cognoscō (Spanish conocer, French connaître, Italian conoscere, Portuguese conhecer), Ancient Greek γνωρίζω and γνῶσις ("knowledge"), Albanian njoh, Russian знать, Lithuanian žinoti, and Persian شناختن.
Verb

know (knows, present participle knowing; simple past knew, past participle known)

  1. (transitive) To perceive the truth or factuality of; to be certain of; to be certain that.
    • 1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, →OCLC ↗, section II, page 24 ↗:
      ‘[…] 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. (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 ↗, 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.[’]
  3. (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 ↗, 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.
  4. (intransitive, obsolete) To be acquainted (with another person).
    • c. 1606–1607 (date written), 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 ↗, [Act II, scene vi], page 350 ↗, column 1:
      You, and I haue knowne ſir.
  5. (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 ↗, 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, [https://web.archive.org/web/20181113034859/https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/lets-learn-english-lesson-2-hello/3113733.html VOA Learning English] (public domain)
      Marsha is my roommate. — I know Marsha. She is nice.
    1. (transitive, archaic, Biblical, euphemistic) 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 ↗, 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,”, in 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.
  6. (transitive) To experience.
    Their relationship knew ups and downs.
  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.
  8. (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 ↗, 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 ↗, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hwptej;view=1up;seq=10 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.
  9. (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.
    • 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter V, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC ↗, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=emu.010001278701;view=1up;seq=131 page 115]:
      Ernest also is so much improved, that you would hardly know him: […].
  10. (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 ↗, 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.”
    • 2016, [https://web.archive.org/web/20170918070146/https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/lets-learn-english-lesson-3-i-am-here/3126527.html VOA Learning English] (public domain)
      Marsha knows.
  11. (transitive) To be able to play or perform (a song or other piece of music).
    Do you know "Blueberry Hill"?
  12. (transitive) To have indexed and have information about within one's database.
  13. (transitive, philosophy) To maintain (a belief, a position) subject to a given philosophical Definitions of knowledge; to hold a justified true belief.
Conjugation
Conjugation of know

infinitive (to) know
present tense past 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.

Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Noun

know (uncountable)

  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 ↗, [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.)
Noun

know (plural knows)

  1. Alternative form of knowe
    • 1868, History of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, volumes 4-5, page 223:
      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.
Pronunciation
  • (SG) IPA: [noː˨˦], [-oʊ-], [ˈno]
Particle
  1. (Singlish) Used at the end of a sentence to draw attention to information the speaker thinks the listener should keep in mind.
    Make sure you water the plants, know…


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