cognitive
Pluralcognitives
- 1Relating to the mental functions concerned with thinking and reasoning, as distinct from the emotional ones.
The therapy targets cognitive distortions rather than the patient's emotional responses.
Researchers measured cognitive performance under stress, separating it from mood effects.
Similarmental, intellectual, cerebral
Note
Knowing is at the heart of this sense. The word comes through Medieval Latin cognitivus from Latin cognoscere, "to get to know", and it marks thinking off from feeling. Its paired term is affective, which covers the emotional side: a cognitive change concerns reasoning, an affective one concerns mood. It also names whole fields of study, as in cognitive neuroscience.
- 2Relating to the intellect; intellectual in character.
The university prizes cognitive achievement above athletic prowess.
His cognitive gifts were obvious from an early age.
Similarintellectual, mental, cerebral, academic
Oppositephysical
- 3Cognate; recognized as descending from a common origin with another form.
The older philologists regarded Latin and Greek as cognitive, descended from a shared ancestor.
Wanux "white man," cognitive with Aben. awanoch, now used for "Canadian Frenchman";
1903, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Held at PhiladelphiaNote
An obsolete linguist's use, found in comparative work on Abenaki. The Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society in 1903 call one word "cognitive with" an Abenaki form, so the adjective took with. A modern reader would take it as the thinking-and-reasoning sense and be misled. In current writing use cognate, and expect this sense only in older scholarship.
Less common meaning
- 4A cognate; a word descended from the same origin as another.
The lexicographer arranged each cognitive next to its sister form in the related tongue.
Abenaki awanoch, the cognitive of Penobscot awenoch, means Frenchman,
1902, American AnthropologistNote
The noun partner of the obsolete "cognate" adjective belongs to the same era and the same kind of scholarship. American Anthropologist in 1902 calls Abenaki awanoch "the cognitive of Penobscot awenoch", so the noun took of. Its plural was cognitives. A modern writer would say "a cognate of" instead.
Showing meanings only.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with cognitive, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.
Origin
From Medieval Latin cognitīvus, based on Latin cognitus, the past participle of cognōscō ("I get to know"), combined with the adjective suffix -īvus.