reconnaître

See also: reconnaitre

English

Etymology

From French reconnaître.

Verb

reconnaître (third-person singular simple present reconnaîtres, present participle reconnaîtring, simple past and past participle reconnaîtred)

1. Rare form of reconnoitre.
   • 1841, [Charles Lever], Charles O’Malley, the Irish Dragoon, volume II, Dublin: William Curry, Jun. and Company; Edinburgh: Fraser and Company; London: W. S. Orr and Company, page 295:

     An officer sent forward to reconnaître, returned with the intelligence that they were British troops, for he had seen their red uniforms.

   • 1841, Lord Mahon [Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope], History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (Collection of Ancient and Modern British Authors; CCCXXVI), 3rd edition, volume II, Paris: Baudry’s European Library, page 245:

     His cavalry, whom he sent out to reconnaître close to Hawley’s camp, brought word that they could see no appearance of movement.

     Changed from reconnoitre (1838) and reconnaitre (1839).

   • 1887, Edward R. Bensley, A New Dictionary of the Spanish and English Languages, Paris: Garnier Brothers, […], page 98, column 3:

     To reconnaître the enemy’s camp.

   • 1957, Conferência internacional dos Africanistas Ocidentais, C.C.T.A., page 213:

     […] to reconnaître the sites where the clays are to be found, through their possible relation with bauxite sediments.

   • 1984, Shamanism in Eurasia, part 2, →ISBN, page 394:

     It is a well known fact that Lapps can fall into trances in order to reconnaître how things and human beings are in distant places.

   • 1994, Andrea De Guttry, Lo status della nave da guerra in tempo di pace, →ISBN, page 75:

     if it is true,...., that the orders contained information concerning certain positions from which the British warships might have been fired at, it cannot be deduced therefrom that the vessels had received orders to reconnaître Albanian coastal defences

   • 2008, “[Function 1: Navigation] Part B1: Course Outline and Guidance Notes”, in Officer in Charge of a Navigational Watch on a Fishing Vessel (Model Course 7.06), London: International Maritime Organization, →ISBN, page 34:

     At the same time, the rescue vessel should reconnaître the area around the wreck to see if there are any obstructions which might hamper the boat.

   • 2012, Sally Spedding, Malediction, Sparkling Books, →ISBN, page 162:

     Having arrived at Libourne, instead of going straight to the Refuge as originally planned, she’d decided it was best to reconnaître the surroundings at different times of the day.

French

Alternative forms

• reconnaitre (post-1990 spelling)

Etymology

Inherited from Old French reconoistre, from Latin recognōscere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʁə.kɔ.nɛtʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

reconnaître

1. to recognize
2. to recognise (something or someone that one has encountered before)
3. to acknowledge, to admit (something is true)

Conjugation

This verb is one of a fairly small group of -re verbs that are all conjugated the same way. They are unlike other verb groups in that the 'i' is given a circumflex before a 't'.

Conjugation of reconnaître (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	reconnaître
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	reconnaissant /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.sɑ̃/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.sɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		reconnu /ʁə.kɔ.ny/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	reconnais /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ/	reconnais /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ/	reconnaît /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ/	reconnaissons /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.sɔ̃/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.sɔ̃/	reconnaissez /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.se/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.se/	reconnaissent /ʁə.kɔ.nɛs/
	imperfect	reconnaissais /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.sɛ/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.sɛ/	reconnaissais /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.sɛ/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.sɛ/	reconnaissait /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.sɛ/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.sɛ/	reconnaissions /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.sjɔ̃/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.sjɔ̃/	reconnaissiez /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.sje/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.sje/	reconnaissaient /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.sɛ/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.sɛ/
	past historic2	reconnus /ʁə.kɔ.ny/	reconnus /ʁə.kɔ.ny/	reconnut /ʁə.kɔ.ny/	reconnûmes /ʁə.kɔ.nym/	reconnûtes /ʁə.kɔ.nyt/	reconnurent /ʁə.kɔ.nyʁ/
	future	reconnaîtrai /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁe/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁe/	reconnaîtras /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁa/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁa/	reconnaîtra /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁa/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁa/	reconnaîtrons /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁɔ̃/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁɔ̃/	reconnaîtrez /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁe/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁe/	reconnaîtront /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁɔ̃/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁɔ̃/
	conditional	reconnaîtrais /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁɛ/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁɛ/	reconnaîtrais /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁɛ/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁɛ/	reconnaîtrait /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁɛ/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁɛ/	reconnaîtrions /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁi.jɔ̃/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁi.jɔ̃/	reconnaîtriez /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁi.je/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁi.je/	reconnaîtraient /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.tʁɛ/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.tʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior2	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	reconnaisse /ʁə.kɔ.nɛs/	reconnaisses /ʁə.kɔ.nɛs/	reconnaisse /ʁə.kɔ.nɛs/	reconnaissions /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.sjɔ̃/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.sjɔ̃/	reconnaissiez /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.sje/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.sje/	reconnaissent /ʁə.kɔ.nɛs/
	imperfect2	reconnusse /ʁə.kɔ.nys/	reconnusses /ʁə.kɔ.nys/	reconnût /ʁə.kɔ.ny/	reconnussions /ʁə.kɔ.ny.sjɔ̃/	reconnussiez /ʁə.kɔ.ny.sje/	reconnussent /ʁə.kɔ.nys/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	reconnais /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ/	—	reconnaissons /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.sɔ̃/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.sɔ̃/	reconnaissez /ʁə.kɔ.nɛ.se/ or /ʁə.kɔ.ne.se/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
1 The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way: past historic → present perfect past anterior → pluperfect imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Related terms

• reconnaissance
• connaître

Further reading

• “reconnaître”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• encornerait, renoncerait