knowledge
knowl·edge
(nŏl′ĭj)n.
1. The state or fact of knowing: Humans naturally aspire to knowledge.
2. Familiarity, awareness, or understanding gained through experience or study: has great knowledge of these parts; has only limited knowledge of chemistry.
3. The sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned: the extraordinary knowledge housed in the library.
4. Archaic Carnal knowledge.
[Middle English knoulech : knouen, to know; see know + -leche, n. suff.]
Synonyms: knowledge, information, learning, erudition, scholarship, lore1
These nouns refer to what is known, as through study or experience. Knowledge is the broadest: "Science is organized knowledge" (Herbert Spencer).
Information often implies a collection of facts and data: "A man's judgment cannot be better than the information on which he has based it" (Arthur Hays Sulzberger).
Learning usually refers to knowledge gained by schooling and study: "Learning ... must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence" (Abigail Adams).
Erudition implies profound, often specialized knowledge: "Some have criticized his poetry as elitist, unnecessarily impervious to readers who do not share his erudition" (Elizabeth Kastor).
Scholarship is the mastery of a particular area of learning reflected in a scholar's work: A good journal article shows ample evidence of the author's scholarship. Lore is usually applied to knowledge gained through tradition or anecdote about a particular subject: Many American folktales concern the lore of frontier life.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
knowledge
(ˈnɒlɪdʒ)n
1. the facts, feelings, or experiences known by a person or group of people
2. the state of knowing
3. awareness, consciousness, or familiarity gained by experience or learning
4. erudition or informed learning
5. specific information about a subject
6. (Law) sexual intercourse (obsolete except in the legal phrase carnal knowledge)
7. come to one's knowledge to become known to one
8. to my knowledge
a. as I understand it
b. as I know
9. grow out of one's knowledge Irish to behave in a presumptuous or conceited manner
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
knowl•edge
(ˈnɒl ɪdʒ)n.
1. acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles.
2. familiarity or conversance, as by study or experience: a knowlege of human nature.
3. the fact or state of knowing; clear and certain mental apprehension.
4. awareness, as of a fact or circumstance.
5. something that is or may be known; information.
6. the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time.
7. the sum of what is known: Knowledge of the situation is limited.
8. Archaic. sexual intercourse.
Idioms:to one's knowledge, according to the information available to one: To my knowledge, he never worked here.
[1250–1300; Middle English knouleche=know(en) to know + -leche, perhaps akin to Old English -lāc suffix denoting action or practice, compare wedlock]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
Knowledge
the Skeptic doctrine that knowledge cannot be certain. — acataleptic, n.
Archaic. the study of human ignorance.
antagonism to learning, education, and the educated, expressed in literature in a conscious display of simplicity, earthiness, even colorful semi-literacy. — anti-intellectual, n., adj.
a secret or mystery; carefully hidden knowledge. See also alchemy. — arcana, n. pi.
the teaching of useful knowledge. — chrestomathic, adj.
men of learning as a class or collectively; the intelligentsia or literati.
the state of being determinate; the quality of being certain or precise.
a system of acquiring knowledge that rejects all o priori knowledge and relies solely upon observation, experimentation, and induction. Also empirism. — empiricist, n., adj. — empiric, empirical, adj.
1. the command of a wide range of knowledge.
2. the writings and thoughts of the 18th-century French Encyclopedists, especially an emphasis on scientific rationalism. — encyclopedist, n.
the branch of philosophy that studies the origin, nature, methods, validity, and limits of human knowledge. — epistemologist, n. — epistemic, epistemological, adj.
an excessive love or reverence for knowledge. — epistemophiliac, n., adj.
a reliance on principles of empiricism in philosophy or science. — experimentalist, n.
the characteristic of being an expert.
1. excessive concern for f acts.
2. a theory or belief relying heavily on fact. — factualist, n. — factualistic, adj.
the philosophy of knowledge and the human faculties for learning, Also called gnostology. — gnosiological, gnoseological, adj.
1. (l.c.) the claim to possess superior knowledge.
2. the beliefs or claims of certain religious groups or sects that they possess special religious enlightenment. — Illuminati, illuminati, Illuminist, illuminist, n.
trifling or inconsequential facts or trivia.
Obsolete, ignorance or the absence of knowledge. — inscient, adj.
1. the exercise of the intellect.
2. a devotion to intellectual activities.
3. an excessive emphasis on intellect and a resulting neglect of emotion. — intellectualistic, adj.
1. Metaphysics. the doctrine that the reality of perceived external objects is known intuitively, without the intervention of a representative idea.
2. Metaphysics. the doctrine that knowledge rests upon axiomatic truths discerned intuitively.
3. Ethics. the doctrine that moral values and duties can be perceived directly. Also called intuitivism. — intuitionalist, intuitionist, n.
the method used by Socrates in bringing forth knowledge through questions and insistence upon close and logical reasoning. — maieutic, adj.
the doctrine that objects of knowledge have no existence except in themindof theperceiver. — mentalist, n. — mentalistic, adj.
a hatred of reason, reasoning, and knowledge. — misologist, n.
Epistemology. a theory that the object and datum of cognition are identical.
1. universal or inflnite knowledge.
2. the state of being all-knowing. Also Obsolete, omniscious. — omniscient, adj.
a method or means for communicating knowledge or for philosophical inquiry.
1. the possession of universal knowledge. Cf. pansophy.
2. the claim to such enlightenment. — pansophist, n. — pansophistical, adj.
1. a universal wisdom or encyclopedie learning.
2. a system of universal knowledge; pantology. — pansophic, adj.
a systematic survey of all branches of knowledge. — pantologist, n. — pantologic, pantological, adj.
the doctrine that asserts knowledge as relative to sensory perception. — perceptionist, n.
1. Rare. a lover of learning.
2. (cap.) an advocate of Philonism. Also spelled Philonist.
a state or quality of full confidence or absolute certainty.
a person of exceptionally wide knowledge; polymath. — polyhistoric, adj.
the possession of learning in many fields. — polymath, n., adj.
the theory that perception gives the mind an immediate cognition of an object. — presentationalist, presentationist, n.
in the Middle Ages, one of the two divisions of the seven liberal arts, comprising arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. See also trivium.
a scholar or person of great learning.
a superficial knowledge, especially when pretentiously revealed. — sciolist, n. — sciolistic, sciolous, adj.
a supposed knowledge of natura! and supernatural forces, usually based upon tradition rather than ascertained fact, as astrology and phrenology. — sciosophist, n.
the theory of the use of signs, especially words, in their relation to knowledge and cognition.
a theory of symbology that embraces pragmatics and linguistics. — semiotic, adj.
1. a devotion or restriction to a particular pursuit, branch of study, etc.
2. a field of specialization within a science or area of knowledge, as otology within medicine. — specialist, n. — specialistic, adj.
the study and description of arts and sciences from the point of view of their historical development, geographical, and ethnic distribution.
clairvoyance or other occult or supernatural knowledge.
unimportant, trifling things or details, especially obscure and useless knowledge. — trivial, adj.
in the Middle Ages, one of the two divisions of the seven liberal arts, comprising logic, grammar, and rhetoric. See also quadrivium.
-Ologies & -Isms. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Knowledge
See Also: EDUCATION, MIND, INTELLIGENCE
- A body without knowledge is like a house without a foundation —Hebrew proverb
- The desire for knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it —Laurence Sterne
- Follow knowledge, like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought —Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Gleaned bits of information like a mouse hoarding pellets of bran stolen from the feed manger —Rita Mae Brown
- (There are no limits to his knowledge, on small subjects as well as great;) he is like a book in breeches —Sydney Smith about Macaulay
- In knowledge, as in swimming, he who flounders and splashes on the surface, makes more noise, and attracts more attention than the pearl-diver who quietly dives in quest of treasures to the bottom —Washington Irving
- In science, as in life, learning and knowledge are distinct, and the study of things, and not of books is the source of the latter —Thomas H. Huxley
- It’s like swimming; once you learn it, you never forget it —Miguel de Cervantes
- Knowledgeable as a walking encyclopedia of universal knowledge —Louisa May Alcott
- Knowledge … is like a fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself —Samuel Johnson, letter to William Drummond, August 23, 1766
- Knowledge … like a rough diamond … will never be worn or shine, if it is not polished —Lord Chesterfield
- Knowledge, like religion, must be “experienced” in order to be known —Edwin Percy Whipple
- The knowledge of man is like the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation —Francis Bacon
Paraphrased from Bacon’s “Knowledge of man is as the waters.”
- Knowledge, when wisdom is too weak to guide her, is like a headstrong horse that throws the rider —Francis Quarles
- The right to know is like the right to live. It is fundamental and unconditional in its assumption that knowledge, like life, is a desirable thing —George Bernard Shaw
- The struggle for knowledge has a pleasure in it like that of wrestling with a fine woman —Lord Halifax
The original simile used ‘hath’ instead of ‘has.’
- The understanding, like the eyes, while it makes us see and perceive all things, takes no notice of itself, and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own subject —John Locke
The fifth word is a modernization of the original, ‘whilst.’
- We deal our knowledge like a pack of cards —George Garrett
- With informations we can go anywhere in the world, we are like turtles, our houses always on our backs —John Le Carré
In his novel A Perfect Spy, Le Carré expands the simile as follows: “You learn to paint, you can paint anywhere. A sculptor, a musician, a painter, they need no permits. Only their heads.”
Similes Dictionary, 1st Edition. © 1988 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Knowledge
burn one’s fingers To hurt one-self, physically or mentally, by meddling in other people’s affairs or by acting impetuously. The expression usually implies that one has learned from the painful experience, and will avoid such situations or involvements in the future. The phrase has been in figurative use since 1710, often in proverbial statements like the following:
The busybody burns his own fingers. (Samuel Palmer, Proverbs)
A similar current American slang expression is get burnt, which has the additional meaning of suffering financial loss.
by rote From memory; mechanically, automatically, unthinkingly, without understanding or feeling; usually as modifier of verbs such as learn, get, know, recite. Conjecture that rote comes from the Latin rota ‘wheel,’ and that by rote consequently relates to the repetitious turning round and round in the mind that accompanies memorizing, lacks solid etymological basis. George Gordon, Lord Byron, used the expression in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809):
Take hackney’d jokes from Miller got by rote.
cut one’s eyeteeth To gain knowledge or understanding; to become sophisticated or experienced in the ways of the world; also to have one’s eyeteeth meaning ‘to be worldly-wise or aware.’ This expression, which dates from the early 1700s, derives from the fact that the eyeteeth are cut late, usually at about the age of twelve. The implication then is that a person who has already cut his eyeteeth has reached the age of discretion. A similar phrase with the same meaning is to cut one’s wisdom teeth. Wisdom teeth are cut even later than eyeteeth, usually between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five.
know one’s beans To be generally knowledgeable and aware; to know a subject thoroughly; to be proficient, to have mastered a particular skill. Popular since the 19th century, this expression may be a contraction of the British know how many beans make five, an expression also used figuratively and said to derive from the practice of using beans to teach children how to count.
One has to know beans to be successful in the latest Washington novelty for entertainment at luncheons. (Chicago Herald, 1888)
In the U.S., the negative construction not to know beans is more frequently heard, and may even antedate the other two.
Whatever he knows of Euclid and Greek,
In Latin he don’t know beans. (Yale Literary Magazine, 1855)
Know one’s onions is a common U.S. slang variant, as are know one’s stuff and know one’s business.
know the ropes To completely understand the operational methods of one’s occupation or enterprise; to know the tricks of the trade. A sailor who understands the arrangement and functions of the numerous ropes on a ship is considered an invaluable crew member. Similarly, a person familiar with the ins and outs of his job or company establishes himself as a most valuable employee.
The circle was composed of men who thought they “knew the ropes” as well as he did. (John N. Maskelyne, Sharps and Flats, 1894)
under one’s belt As a part of one’s past experience, to one’s credit, successfully completed or accomplished.
His wife had 135,000 miles driving in the States under her belt … but was still failed. (The Manchester Guardian Weekly, August, 1954)
Originally under one’s belt ‘in one’s stomach’ referred to food which had been taken in, digested, and finally assimilated into the body. Similarly, one’s experiences are incorporated into one’s personality.
Picturesque Expressions: A Thematic Dictionary, 1st Edition. © 1980 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.