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knew

[noo, nyoo]

Example Sentences Origin

verb

simple past tense of know.

Can be confused: gnu, knew, new (see synonym and pronunciation notes at new).

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Knew is one of our favorite verbs.

So is peculate. Does it mean:

to steal or take dishonestly (money, esp. public funds, or property entrusted to one's care); embezzle.

to flee; abscond:

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Example Sentences

Here was someone who knew when not to respond or make a fuss.

On the other hand, he knew that any discovery was morally neutral.

People who knew geography knew what the receding ocean meant.

EXPAND

Here was someone who knew when not to respond or make a fuss.

On the other hand, he knew that any discovery was morally neutral.

People who knew geography knew what the receding ocean meant.

Much of what you thought you knew about dinosaurs turns out to be wrong.

Matsuzawa had done some basic studies with rats and monkeys, but he knew little about chimpanzees.

They knew that three less two equaled one trigger-man left behind.

Airbender was also a super fun show from a group of people who knew each other well and came up in the industry at the same time.

Predictably enough, those who knew me on a personal basis offered contrary advice to that given to me by faculty members.

But the argument would be more persuasive if, in return, countries knew they would get more mutual protection.

He knew that microorganisms could live in oxygen-deprived environments by processing things such as sulfate and methane.

Clues in the text hint that the poet knew his astronomy.

He was homesick and often hiked up a mountain above the village to surround himself with songbirds he knew from home.

She knew she could create a traffic-stopping tapestry of plants that would survive on half the water.

We hardly knew you, and there isn't anyone who knew us better.

He knew they could never keep it all in their heads, as he had.

Cleopatra and her kin knew a thing or two about crafting an alluring smoky eye.

Michael probably knew more about the drugs than he did but didn't have a license to write prescriptions.

The second thing to recognize is that none of the three knew one another.

But the busy professional also knew he needed easy-care plants.

Scientists of the time knew that evolution occurred.

Jerusalem echoed with mortar bursts and small arms fire: both sides had watched each other for years and knew where to aim.

Researchers knew picking up red-bellied piranhas-among the few piranhas dangerous to humans-could prompt croaks from the fish.

But as someone who had previously studied perception in bees, he knew that it was original, high-quality research.

The museum in its current state of demolition proved disorienting to those who knew it before.

He knew he'd have more fun in the water if he could stay warm.

We knew he had an insanely large collection of computers and related paraphernalia.

Better, it was thought, to appoint outsiders who knew nothing of their new kingdoms.

But after spending five days trapped in its depths, he knew getting out alive would require drastic action.

And another quarter might be if scientists knew more about them.

She liked and knew how to garden but what she really wanted to do was farm.

We knew the military had an awesomely bad collection of acronyms.

Presumably, the innocent participants knew such a tape would exonerate them.

Tolkien well understood the power of the written and spoken word, philologist that he was-he knew that words were magic.

Davis and company knew that in metals, the property arose from vibrations in the crystal lattice.

But the young pilot knew a fellow aviator who had flown as a demo pilot for the defunct company.

He knew the history and cultures of the countries he wrote about.

Based on previous data, scientists knew that iguanas in the region possessed genetic differences.

The police were therefore unable to retrace the fiend's route?all they knew was that he'd never walked the same pathway twice.

Bacteriologists knew that, of course, but they could only guess how little they knew.

No one knew that a new chapter in history was opening.

My kids knew sign language and would tell me using a combination of signs and verbal words what their dreams were about: stories.

His aides say that he knew nothing about the scheme before a local planning committee considered it.

But no one knew what was actually going on up in the canopy at night.

His death was not only a tragic loss to those of us who knew him, it was also the act of a criminal.

They knew fire and were able to create portable shelters.

First, he asked people who knew individual animals well to describe them with lots of different adjectives.

Your ancestors knew a tomato was good because of the way it looked, felt and smelled.

Besides the bountiful hydrogen and oxygen found in cometary ice, astronomers knew that comets contained a lot of carbon monoxide.

Researchers knew that the brilliant colors result from so-called structural.

Yeah, he thought he knew better than the client what would make the client happy.

So the couple knew they could do something interesting with the modest property.

We knew what it was called, but no one was saying what it was.

At the time, nobody knew how important the letter was.

Everyone knew an attack was likely and many thought it inevitable.

Naftali's scholarly work had often dealt with the presidency, so he knew that voters do not choose among saints.

Or where he would prescribe drugs he knew would work and not have debilitating side-effects.

She also knew from an early age that she had an innate ability to heal both people and animals.

Seeing her standing there, he knew at once that was the pose he wanted.

Sure, you knew printer makers were playing you for a fool with overpriced ink cartridges.

After all, he knew something about the dangers of addiction from firsthand experience.

From the moment she saw the business plan for eBay she knew the online.

He'd already decided to have them deboned and knew exactly how he wanted them stuffed and prepared-one inside the other.

Peanut butter company knew its products contained salmonella.

The camera doesn't lie, people used to say, before they knew better.

Ok, you probably knew that already, because everything is going to kill everybody.

When the smoking light went off, you knew you were safe.

They made things when they knew they had a customer.

If people knew the planet was in danger, they might work harder to save it.

But after they moved the site, researchers realized they knew little about the flight patterns of petrels.

He had been looking for someone who knew the university and could act as a confidante and a messenger.

They knew finance could be stressful at the best of times.

Mendel knew that a single grain of pollen could fertilize a pea plant's ovum.

It's charming to watch and so simply explained that you're almost fooled into thinking you knew this material already.

The only thing they knew about each wine was the varietal and price range.

No one knew whether she had deliberately shielded her eyes from death or if the river current had simply veiled her face.

Mumma also knew that lynx were astoundingly beautiful and mysterious creatures.

We also knew that astrophysical arguments suggested about one star would explode per galaxy every century.

Takeda, the museum's costume and textile department head, knew immediately what the restoration expert was staring at:.

If people knew that there was a high chance of contamination when doing something, they might not choose that action.

They knew this at the turn of the century, but the problem was.

Her husband, she insisted, knew nothing about the fraud.

Many of the rest are alumni who knew a good thing when they saw it and found reason to stay.

Thankfully my daughter was a veterinary nurse, and knew right away to get the pup to the vet.

He'd drop three grand at a bar without blinking and bought a motorcycle before he knew how to ride.

The result was that few people knew her, outside professional photographers and her poker circle.

For those who knew him and his work, it's hard to imagine him having done anything less than it all.

Until now, however, no one knew if this actually happened in living cells.

With dozens of bullet and shrapnel wounds, he knew he was lucky to have survived.

But in that study, they knew who the samples came from, raising questions about whether they already knew what to look for.

Scientists already knew that the creatures, which resemble underwater hedgehogs, are.

Also from previous work, they knew the genes whose expression within the transition zone was higher than elsewhere in the cell.

And all the courtiers knew that they, too, were only one step away from a similar fate.

We knew we'd be writing a lot of stories on the topic to meet the demand for information on.

Each participant obviously knew what he was spraying on himself, since he could smell it.

They developed a number of sounds¿even quite dissimilar ones¿from the same prototype sound they already knew.

But paleontologists knew the movie's raptors were drawn with a bit of artistic license.

For nearly a century, federally condoned bigotry knew no.

And the veteran costume designer knew she had to get every.

The chairman knew perfectly well that he was going to be harming the environment and decided to go ahead anyway.

By high school, he knew that he wanted to be a biologist.

What he did not know-indeed, what no one knew until now.

Leakey knew at once it was a hominid, one of humankind's bipedal predecessors.

The serving sizes have grown to tremendous proportions, and no one knew what serving sizes were.

Soon, people who knew more than he did about photography were telling him he had something special on his hands.

In any case everyone knew his stand on segregation: today, tomorrow and for ever.

It's about discovering that there's more to the world-and yourself-than you knew.

Many such tragedies, experts say, could be avoided if doctors knew an individual's genetic makeup.

But it was a country he knew only from a great distance.

There was a widespread perception that everybody knew the rules of the election beforehand.

He tagged along with them to the local public hospital, and knew from an early age that he wanted to go into medicine.

Because they knew when the people in the sample were.

He only knew that she represented a ticket to freedom.

Although no one knew what the stuff is made of or how it works, scientists could see from its effects that it is out there.

Her strength was that she knew the facts, and knew her rights.

Neither the patients nor the doctors knew which medication subjects took.

Mostly, though, the trial confirmed what many already knew.

If they knew about inhaling it then the next step would have been injesting it.

Contemporaries knew that he was special, but often found it hard to say why.

We knew from previous work that there was some colinearity of the genomes.

But until recently, no one knew how aspirin actually works.

They won tokens by betting correctly that they either knew or didn't know the answer.

He knew it wasn't a rock, but he was amazed to learn it is a mammoth tooth.

COLLAPSE

Dictionary.com Unabridged

verb (used with object)

to perceive or understand as fact or truth; to apprehend clearly and with certainty: I know the situation fully.

to have established or fixed in the mind or memory: to know a poem by heart; Do you know the way to the park from here?

to be cognizant or aware of: I know it.

be acquainted with (a thing, place, person, etc.), as by sight, experience, or report: to know the mayor.

to understand from experience or attainment (usually followed by how before an infinitive): to know how to make gingerbread.

EXPAND

to be able to distinguish, as one from another: to know right from wrong.

Archaic. to have sexual intercourse with.

COLLAPSE

verb (used without object)

to have knowledge or clear and certain perception, as of fact or truth.

to be cognizant or aware, as of some fact, circumstance, or occurrence; have information, as about something.

noun

10.

the fact or state of knowing; knowledge.

Idioms

11.

in the know, possessing inside, secret, or special information.

12.

know the ropes, Informal. to understand or be familiar with the particulars of a subject or business: He knew the ropes better than anyone else in politics.

Origin:
before 900; Middle English knowen, knawen, Old English gecnāwan; cognate with Old High German -cnāhan, Old Norse knā to know how, be able to; akin to Latin (g)nōvī, Greek gignṓskein. See gnostic, can¹

Related forms

know·er, noun

Synonyms
1. Know, comprehend, understand imply being aware of meanings. To know is to be aware of something as a fact or truth: He knows the basic facts of the subject. I know that he agrees with me. To comprehend is to know something thoroughly and to perceive its relationships to certain other ideas, facts, etc. To understand is to be fully aware not only of the meaning of something but also of its implications: I could comprehend all he said, but did not understand that he was joking.

Link To knew

Collins

World English Dictionary

knew (njuː)

—vb
	the past tense of know

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

know

O.E. cnawan (class VII strong verb; past tense cneow, pp. cnawen), from P.Gmc. *knoeanan (cf. O.H.G. bi-chnaan, ir-chnaan "to know"), from PIE base *gno- "to know" (cf. O.Pers. xnasatiy "he shall know;" O.C.S. znati, Rus. znat "to know;" L. gnoscere; Gk. *gno-, as in gignoskein; Skt. jna- "know"). Once

EXPAND

widespread in Gmc., this form is now retained only in Eng., where however it has widespread application, covering meanings that require two or more verbs in other languages (e.g. Ger. wissen, kennen, erkennen and in part können; Fr. connaître, savoir; L. novisse, cognoscire, scire; O.C.S. znaja, vemi). The Anglo-Saxons used two distinct words for this, witan (see wit) and cnawan. Meaning "to have sexual intercourse with" is attested from c.1200, from the O.T. To not know one's ass from one's elbow is from 1930. To know better "to have learned from experience" is from 1704. You know as a parenthetical filler is from 1712, but it has roots in 14c. M.E. Know-how "technical expertise" first recorded 1838 in Amer.Eng. Know-nothing "ignoramus" is from 1827; as a U.S. nativist political party, active 1853-56, the name refers to the secret society at the core of the party, about which members were instructed to answer, if asked about it, that they "know nothing." The party merged into the Republican Party.

knew

p.t. of know (q.v.).

COLLAPSE

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