ETYM Old Eng. knowlage, knowlege, knowleche, knawleche. The last part is the Icel. suffix -leikr, forming abstract nouns, orig. the same as Icel. leikr game, play, sport, akin to as. lâc, Goth. laiks dance. Related to Know, Lake, Lark a frolic.
1. The condition of knowing.
2. The breadth of one's understanding.
3. Learning in general.
4. Sexual intercourse; carnal knowledge.
Awareness of or familiarity with something or someone, or confidence in the accuracy of a fact or other information. Knowledge is often defined as justified true belief, although philosophers dispute what would count as justification here, and some philosophers have argued that knowledge does not involve but replaces belief. The philosophy of knowledge is epistemology.
For Plato, knowledge is of the Forms, or universals, whereas belief is of changing, material things. For English philosopher John Locke, knowledge is “the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas”. French mathematician René Descartes thought his “cogito ergo sum”/“I think, therefore I am” was an item of certain knowledge. English philosopher Gilbert Ryle contrasts knowing how and knowing that: moral knowledge is knowing how to behave, whereas factual knowledge is knowing that something is the case.