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reconnoitre

/ˌɹɛkəˈnɔɪtɚ/verb, noun

reconnoitre is a verb meaning “To perform a reconnaissance (of an area; an enemy position); to scout with the aim of gaining information” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-E-C-O-N-N-O-I-T-R-E and has 4 syllables, and it appears about once in every 14 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does reconnoitre mean?

verb

  1. 1

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

    Our scout will reconnoitre the path ahead of our troops.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo recognise.

noun

  1. 1

    An act or instance of reconnoitring.

    The pilot reported the findings of his reconnoitre.

verb

as reconnoître
  1. 1

    rareRare spelling of reconnoitre.

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

How do you pronounce reconnoitre?

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

Reconnoitre 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, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Sapaa-reconnoitre.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of reconnoitre

  • reconnoitres present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • reconnoitring participle, present
  • reconnoitred participle, past
  • reconnoiter US
  • reconnaître rare
  • reconnoître rare
  • reconnoîtres present, singular, he/she/it
  • reconnoîtring participle, present
  • reconnoîtred participle, past

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

How common is reconnoitre?

Reconnoitre appears about once in every 14 million words in written English, the 114,361st 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).

Where does reconnoitre come from?

From French reconnoître (obsolete spelling of reconnaître), from Latin recognoscere (“to recognise”). There is also an obsolete 19th-century British English spelling reconnaitre, influenced by the modern French form.

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