Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In Scots law, to take the precognition of: as, to precognosce witnesses. See precognition.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb (Scots Law) To examine beforehand, as witnesses or evidence.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb law, Scotland, transitive To examine (e.g. witnesses or evidence) beforehand.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin praecognoscere to foreknow.

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Examples

  • 'Verily, there is a God that _judgeth_ in the earth,' and, of course, all these provisional decisions, which are like the documents that in Scotch law are said to 'precognosce the case,' are all laid away in the archives of heaven, and will be produced, docketed and in order, at the last for each of us.

    Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John Alexander Maclaren 1868

  • No man can precognosce like a woman, and here were three; but perhaps they might have all failed, had it not been for the natural art of Henney, who, out of pure goodness and gratitude, was so delighted with the man who had rolled her in a blanket and sent her to her beloved mother, as she still called her, that she promised to make him butler at Eastleys, and keep him comfortable all his days.

    Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIII Alexander Leighton 1837

  • "Keep your thumb on that," said he; "I'm not supposed to precognosce every lodger in Tynree upon his politics.

    John Splendid The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn Neil Munro

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