Definition of: knowledge

(nol′ij) noun
1. A result or product of knowing; information or understanding acquired through experience; practical ability or skill.
2. Information; learning; specifically, the cumulative culture of the human race.
3. The clear and certain apprehension of truth; assured rational conviction.
4. The act, process, or state of knowing; cognition.
5. Any object of knowing or mental apprehension; that which is or may be known; the knowable; also actual or possible range of information.
6. Specific information; notification; notice.
7. Archaic Sexual intercourse. [OE cnawlœc <cnāwan know] Synonyms: acquaintance, apprehension, cognition, cognizance, comprehension, erudition, experience, information, intelligence, intuition, learning, light, lore, perception, recognition, scholarship, science, wisdom. Knowledge is all that the mind knows, from whatever source derived or obtained, or by whatever process; the aggregate facts, truths, or principles acquired or retained by the mind, including alike the intuitions native to the mind and all that has been learned respecting phenomena, causes, laws, principles, literature, etc. We say of a studious man that he has a great store of knowledge, or of an intelligent man of the world, that he has a fund of varied information. We speak of perception of external objects, apprehension of intellectual truth. Simple perception gives a limited knowledge of external objects, merely as such; the cognition of the same objects is a knowledge of them in some relation; cognizance is the formal or official recognition of something as an object of knowledge; we take cognizance of it. Intuition is primary knowledge antecedent to all teaching or reasoning; experience is knowledge that has entered directly into one's own life; as, a child's experience that fire will burn. See ACQUAINTANCE, EDUCATION, LEARNING, SCIENCE, WISDOM. Antonyms: ignorance, illiteracy, inexperience, misapprehension, misconception, misunderstanding, rudeness, unfamiliarity.