Definition of "know"

Question things. I have the most fun when I'm writing questioning things that people do not question- the assumptions that everybody knows are true.

1985 April 17, Frank Herbert, 15:46 from the start, in Frank Herbert speaking at UCLA 4/17/1985‎, UCLACommStudies, archived from the original on 10 February 2017

‘I know whether a boy is telling me the truth or not.’‘Thank you, sir.’Did he hell. They never bloody did.

1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, page 35

‘A Gentleman!’ quoth the Squire, ‘who the Devil can he be? Do, Doctor, go down and ſee who ’tis. Mr. Blifil can hardly be come to town yet.—Go down, do, and know what his Buſineſs is.[’]

1749, Henry Fielding, “A whimsical Adventure which befel the Squire, with the distressed Situation of Sophia”, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume VI, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], book XVI, page 7

I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, page 18

You, and I haue knowne ſir.

c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene vi], page 350, column 1

I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I shall have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I had left New York for the West.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., page 1

Marsha is my roommate. — I know Marsha. She is nice. Audio (US)(file)

2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)

The Truman family knew good times and bad, […].

1991, Irvin Haas, Historic Homes of the American Presidents, page 155

The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.

2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

Ye ſhall knowe them by their frutes.

1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], Matthew vij:, folio ix, recto

The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, “The Shadow of the Bat”, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, page 6

Flares do not know friend from foe and so illuminate both. Changes in wind direction can result in flare exposure of the attacker while defenders hide in the shadows.

1980, Armored and mechanized brigade operations, p.3−29

At nearer view he thought he knew the dead, / And call'd the wretched man to mind.

c. 1645-1688, Thomas Flatman, Translation of Part of Petronius Arbiter's Satyricon

Ernest also is so much improved, that you would hardly know him: […].

1818, [Mary Shelley], chapter V, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, page 115

“My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”

1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, page 41

Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.

2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884

Marsha knows. Audio (US)(file)

2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)

Mmm... Seems you searched for a name that we don't know, we'll send our trained monkeys to check what's in stock.

2023 June 7, “Search Names and Meanings”, in Name Doctor‎, archived from the original on 7 June 2023

That on the view and know of theſe Contents, […] He ſhould the bearers put to […] death, […]

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene ii], page 259, column 2