# recognition
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English recognicion, from Middle French recognicion, recognition and its etymon Latin recognitiōnem (accusative of recognitiō), from recognitus, past participle of recognōscere.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃən/
* Audio (US):(file)

### Noun

recognition (usually uncountable, plural recognitions)
* The act of recognizing or the condition of being recognized (matching a current observation with a memory of a prior observation of the same entity).
    He looked at her for ten full minutes before recognition dawned.
** 1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, “A Stranger from South Carolina”, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, page 8:Warwick observed, as they passed through the respectable quarter, that few people who met the girl greeted her, and that some others whom she passed at gates or doorways gave her no sign of recognition; from which he inferred that she was possibly a visitor in the town and not well acquainted.
** December 20, 2021, ETSC, New rules on major EU roads should improve infrastructure safety
    One omission is any language on getting roads ready for automated systems in transport. ETSC had called for provisions on ensuring that road markings, signs and infrastructure take into account the specific needs of e.g. traffic sign recognition and automated lane keeping systems.
** 2024 January 10, 'Industry Insider', “Success built on liberalisation and market freedom”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 69:The freight market has changed beyond all recognition from when RAIL was first published. Coal, the then-dominant traffic, has all but disappeared. Instead, maritime intermodal flows have shown steady growth.
* Acceptance as valid or true.
    The law was a recognition of their civil rights.
** 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page vii:With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get […]
* Official acceptance of the status of a new government by that of another country.
* Honour, favourable note, or attention.
    The charity gained plenty of recognition for its efforts, but little money.
* (immunology) The propriety consisting for antibodies to bind to some specific antigens and not to others.
* (Scots law, historical) A return of the feu to the superior.

#### Derived terms

* articulatory speech recognition
* audio-visual speech recognition
* character recognition
* fingerprint recognition
* gender recognition
* intelligent character recognition
* OCR, optical character recognition
* pattern recognition
* recognition of prior learning
* recognition time
* revenue recognition
* rule of recognition
* self-recognition
* speech recognition
* voice recognition

#### Related terms

* recognitive
* recognitory

#### Translations

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

### See also

* identification
* type approval

### References

* ↑ “recogniciọ̄n, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
* ↑ “recognition, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
* ↑ Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “recognition (n.)”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

### Further reading

* recognition on Wikipedia.Wikipedia