• incognito •
Pronunciation: in-kahg-nee-to, in-kahg-ni-to • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective, adverb
Meaning: With concealed identity, masquerading, hiding one's true identity, using a false name, wearing a disguise in order to conceal your identity.
Notes: Today's word is the antonym of recognized, and both contained the easily recognizable root cog- from Latin cognoscere "to get to know" (see Word History). It is so unlike all other English words that it has not been successful at procreation, so remains a lexical orphan.
In Play: There are many motives for going incognito: "Superman worked incognito as mild-mannered Clark Kent, an ordinary American news reporter." Here is another: "Festus followed his wife around incognito for weeks, when he suspected her of infidelity."
Word History: Today's Good Word was borrowed from Italian incognito "unknown", passed down from Latin incognitus "unknown, uninvestigated", the negated past participle of cognoscere "to become acquainted with, investigate, learn". This verb reduces to co(m)- "(together) with" + gno(scere) "to come to know". The prefix co- is a reduced version of com-, demised to Latin as PIE k'em-/k'om- "(together) with", which turned up in German as ge- a collective prefix, as in Gebirge "mountain range" from Berg "mountain", and in Russian and other Slavic languages as s(o) "(together) with". Gnoscere was built on PIE g'ne-/g'no- "to know", which Sanskrit turned into janami "I know", Greek into gnosis "investigation" and gnotos "known", Russian into znat' "to know", Serbian into znati "to know", Polish into znać "to know", Dutch and German into kennen "to know", and English into know. (Thank you now to Susan Ardith for suggesting today's fascinating Good Word back in 2011 and our old friend Jackie Strauss for recently reminding me of it.)
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