cognoscente

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 26, 2025 is: cognoscente \kahn-yuh-SHEN-tee\ noun Cognoscente refers to a person with expert knowledge in a subject. It is usually encountered in its plural form, cognoscenti, and preceded by the. // The audience at the club, though small, was full of writers, musicians, and other noteworthy members of the jazz cognoscenti. [See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cognoscente) Examples: "Even as [Ray] Bradbury was embraced by the New York cognoscenti—traveling to the city in the fall of '46, drawing the attention of Truman Capote, meeting Gore Vidal, dancing with Carson McCullers at a Manhattan party—Mars beckoned. Yet he would not dare tell his New York associates, for fear of being laughed out of the room." — Sam Weller, LitHub.com, 28 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Cognoscente and [connoisseur](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/connoisseur)—both terms for those in the know—are more than synonyms; they’re also linguistic cousins. Both terms descend from the Latin verb cognōscere, meaning "to know," and they’re not alone. You might guess that [cognizance](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cognizance) and [cognition](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cognition) are members of the cognōscere clan. Do you also recognize a family resemblance in [recognize](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/recognize)? Can you see through the disguise of [incognito](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incognito)? Did you have a premonition that we would mention [precognition](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/precognition)? Cognoscente itself came to English by way of Italian and has been a part of the language since the late 1700s.