Recognized

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈɹɛkəɡnaɪzd/

Definitions

1. Identified as familiar or known from past experience ; officially accepted as valid or legitimate by an authority
2. Seen or understood as someone or something previously encountered ; formally acknowledged or approved by a recognized body
3. Understood to be familiar or acknowledged by others ; granted official status or acceptance through proper channels

Etymology: Recognized is the past tense and past participle of "recognize," so its story is really the story of the verb behind it. That verb arrived in English by a roundabout route. It was borrowed from Middle French "reconoistre," which came from Old French and ultimately from Latin "recognoscere," meaning to examine again or to look back over and identify. Its building blocks are "re-," "again," and "cognoscere," "to know," so the word began as a sense of knowing something a second time. English once had its own word for this idea. The native verb "acknow" meant to recognize or perceive as something, and it was eventually displaced by the French-derived borrowing. Relatives in other Germanic languages preserve the older pattern: German "erkennen" and Swedish "erkänna" play the same role, showing that English's own word for recognition was pushed aside by a Latin-based import.

Synonyms: acknowledged, identified, accepted, validated, certified

Antonyms: ignored, overlooked, disregarded, unacknowledged, denied