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Recognize vs Describe - What's the difference?

recognize | describe |

As verbs the difference between recognize and describe

is that recognize is to match something or someone which one currently perceives to a memory of some previous encounter with the same entity or recognize can be to cognize again while describe is (label) to represent in words.

recognize

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) reconoistre, from (etyl) recognoscere, first attested in the 16th century. Displaced native English , compare German erkennen.

Alternative forms

* recognise (non-Oxford British spelling)

Verb

(recogniz) (North American and Oxford British spelling)
  • To match something or someone which one currently perceives to a memory of some previous encounter with the same entity.
  • * 1900 , , (The House Behind the Cedars) , Chapter I,
  • He looked in vain into the stalls for the butcher who had sold fresh meat twice a week, on market days, and he felt a genuine thrill of pleasure when he recognized the red bandana turban of old Aunt Lyddy, the ancient negro woman who had sold him gingerbread and fried fish, and told him weird tales of witchcraft and conjuration, in the old days when, as an idle boy, he had loafed about the market-house.
  • To acknowledge the existence or legality of something; treat as valid or worthy of consideration.
  • To acknowledge or consider as something.
  • To realize or discover the nature of something; apprehend quality in; realize or admit that.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Katrina G. Claw
  • , title= Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm , volume=101, issue=3, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.}}
  • To give an award.
  • To show appreciation of.
  • to recognize services by a testimonial
  • (obsolete) To review; to examine again.
  • (South)
  • (obsolete) To reconnoiter.
  • Derived terms
    * recognizability * recognizable * recognizably * recognizance * recognizant * recognization * recognizee * recognizer * recognizor

    Etymology 2

    From re-'' + ''cognize

    Alternative forms

    * re-cognize

    Verb

    (recogniz) (North American and Oxford British spelling)
  • To cognize again.
  • describe

    English

    Verb

    (describ)
  • (label) To represent in words.
  • * November 2 2014 , Daniel Taylor, " Sergio Agüero strike wins derby for Manchester City against 10-man United," guardian.co.uk
  • Yet the truth is that City would probably have been coasting by that point if the referee, Michael Oliver, had not turned down three separate penalties, at least two of which could be accurately described as certainties.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1959, author=(Georgette Heyer), title=(The Unknown Ajax), chapter=1
  • , passage=
  • (label) To represent by drawing; to draw a plan of; to delineate; to trace or mark out.
  • * 1826 , (James Fenimore Cooper), (The Last of the Mohicans)
  • Uncas described an arc in the water with his own blade, and as the canoe passed swiftly on, Chingachgook recovered his paddle, and flourishing it on high, he gave the war-whoop of the Mohicans.
  • To give rise to a geometrical structure.
  • To reveal a new species by scientifically explaining its characteristics and particularly how it differs from other species.
  • (label) To distribute into parts, groups, or classes; to mark off; to class.
  • * Bible, (w) xviii. 9
  • Passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book.

    Synonyms

    * (to represent in words) portray, betell, depict, report * (to represent in writing) bewrite