con
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /kɒn/
enpr: kŏn
ipa: /kɑn/
rhymes: -ɒn
homophone: conn
homophone: stripped-by-parse_pron_post_template_fn stripped-by-parse_pron_post_template_fn
Forms: form: cons
form: conning
form: conned
form: conned
form: conne
Etymology: Etymology tree
Middle English connen
English con
Inherited from Middle English connen, inherited from Old English cunnan (“to know, know how”), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *kunnan (“recognize, know how”), inherited from Proto-Germanic *kunnaną (“to know, know how”), inherited from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (“to know”) Doublet of can.
Senses: examples: text: For Caſſius is a-weary of the World: / Hated by one he loues, brau'd by his Brother, / Check'd like a bondman, all his faults obſeru'd, / Set in a Note-booke, learn'd, and con'd by roate / To caſt into my Teeth.
ref: 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, [Act IV, scene iii], page 125, column 1:
text: At length, himself unsettling, he the pond / Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look / Upon the muddy water, which he conned, / As if he had been reading in a book
ref: 1815 [1802], William Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence:
text: I did not come into parliament to con my lesson. I had earned my pension before I set my foot in St. Stephen's chapel.
ref: 1795, Edmund Burke, Letter to a Noble Lord on the Attacks Made upon him and his Pension, in the House of Lords, by the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, Early in the Present Session of Parliament:
text: During these delectable entertainments, Miss Wirt and the chaperon sate by, and conned over the peerage, and talked about the nobility.
ref: 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 21, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
text: He read old almanacs at the book-stalls on the quays, and he began to frequent another café, where more newspapers were taken and his post-prandial demi-tasse cost him a penny extra, and where he used to con the tattered sheets for curious anecdotes, freaks of nature, and strange coincidences.
ref: 1876 July, Henry James, Jr., “The American”, in The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, volume XXXVIII, number CCXXV, Boston, Mass.: H[enry] O[scar] Houghton and Company; New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, chapter IV, page 17, column 2:
text: Du Mornay exchanged a few words with me, to assure himself that I understood what I had to do, and then, with many kind expressions, which I did not fail to treasure up and con over in the times that were coming, hastened downstairs after his master.
ref: 1893, Stanley J. Weyman, “II. The King of Navarre”, in A Gentleman of France:
text: The hawk rested on a crag of the gorge and conned the terrain with a fierce and frowning eye.
ref: 1963, D'Arcy Niland, Dadda jumped over two elephants: short stories:
glosses: To study or examine carefully, especially in order to gain knowledge of; to learn, or learn by heart.
examples: text: Of Muses Hobbinol, I conne no skill
ref: 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC:
glosses: To know; understand; acknowledge.
Related terms: aleconner
conner
couth
cuddle
cunning
cunny
ken
unconned