Definition of "recognize"
verb
third-person singular simple present recognizes, present participle recognizing, simple past and past participle recognized
(transitive) To match (something or someone which one currently perceives) to a memory of some previous encounter with the same person or thing.
Quotations
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.
1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […]
verb
third-person singular simple present recognizes, present participle recognizing, simple past and past participle recognized