Skip to main content
PlainSpell

reconnoiter

/ˌɹɛkəˈnɔɪtɚ/verb, noun

reconnoiter is spelled R-E-C-O-N-N-O-I-T-E-R. The wrong spelling people search most is reconoiter: about 80 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Reconnoiter is a verb meaning “To perform a reconnaissance (of an area; an enemy position); to scout with the aim of acquiring information”.

How do you spell reconnoiter?

Reconnoiter is spelled R-E-C-O-N-N-O-I-T-E-R. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for reconnoiter in either form.

reconnoiterthe right spelling680 searches a month
reconoitera missing n80 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

What does reconnoiter mean?

verb

  1. 1

    USTo perform a reconnaissance (of an area; an enemy position); to scout with the aim of acquiring information.

    Our scout will reconnoiter the path ahead of our troops.

noun

  1. 1

    USAn act or instance of reconnoitering.

    The pilot reported the findings of his reconnoiter.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce reconnoiter?

  • UK /ˌɹɛkəˈnɔɪtə/
  • UK [ˌɹʷɛkəˈnɔɪ̯tʰə]
  • US /ˌɹɛkəˈnɔɪtɚ/

Reconnoiter has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-reconnoiter.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of reconnoiter

  • reconnoiters present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • reconnoitering participle, present
  • reconnoitered participle, past
  • reconnoitre

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is reconnoiter?

Reconnoiter appears about once in every 11 million words in written English, the 100,430th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Reconnoiter in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchreconnaître (perform a reconnaissance – see also scout…)
Germanerkunden, auskundschaften, aufklären (perform a reconnaissance – see also scout…), Erkundung, Auskundschaftung, Aufklärung (instance of reconnoitering)
Spanishreconocer, campear, correr la campaña (perform a reconnaissance – see also scout…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does reconnoiter come from?

From French reconnoître (obsolete spelling of reconnaître), from Latin recognoscere (“to recognize”). Contrarily, there is also an obsolete 19th-century British English spelling reconnaitre (now reconnoitre).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).