Meaning of acknowledge in English

acknowledge

verb [ T ]

/əkˈnɒl.ɪdʒ/ us

/əkˈnɑː.lɪdʒ/

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to accept, admit, or recognize something, or the truth or existence of something:

acknowledge someone as something Historians generally acknowledge her as a genius in her field.

[ + -ing verb ] She acknowledged having been at fault.

[ + that ] She acknowledged that she had been at fault.

You must acknowledge the truth of her argument.

[ + obj + to infinitive ] She is usually acknowledged to be one of our best artists.

They refused to acknowledge (= to recognize officially) the new government.

The government won't even acknowledge the existence of the problem.

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

to say that you are wrong

confessRawlinson finally confessed to the robbery.
own upCome on, own up - who's eaten the last sandwich?
fess upFess up - you wanted to go to the cinema instead, didn't you?
come cleanI decided to come clean about the broken vase.
concedeShe did eventually concede that the instructions were not very clear.
admitHe admitted that he had been wrong.

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Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

to accept that something is true

acceptI fully accept that I was wrong.
acknowledgeI acknowledge that the project has faced delays, but we will do all we can to make up time.
recognizeI do recognize that mistakes were made.
admitWhy don't you just admit you got it wrong?

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to tell someone, usually in a letter or email, that you have received something they sent you:

They didn't acknowledge my letter.

acknowledge receipt of Please acknowledge receipt of this letter.

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to answer someone

answer"Thank you", she answered.
replyThe man replied that something was missing.
respondWe aim to respond to all enquiries within five working days.
reactHe reacted positively to the proposal.
get back toI'll look into it and get back to you.
explain"What happened?" she asked. - "There's no time to explain!" he said.

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More examplesFewer examples

Always acknowledge your sources at the end of an essay.
The government has acknowledged that homelessness is a problem but it has failed to grasp the scale of the problem.
It is widely acknowledged that the welfare system is under-resourced.
She acknowledged me with a quick bob of her head.
I regarded her failure to acknowledge my greeting as a slight.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Admitting & confessing

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acknowledge someone's presence

to show that you have seen someone:

He didn't even acknowledge my presence.

He walked past her, without acknowledging her presence by the slightest alteration in his expression.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Reacting and responding

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(Definition of acknowledge from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

acknowledge | American Dictionary

acknowledge

verb [ T ]

/ɪkˈnɑl·ɪdʒ, æk-/

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to accept the truth or recognize the existence of something:

The president acknowledged his mistake in not vetoing the tax bill.

He’s acknowledged as a leader in the Latino community.

fml Please acknowledge receipt of this letter (= tell us when you receive it).

(Definition of acknowledge from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

acknowledge | Business English

acknowledge

verb [ T ]

COMMUNICATIONS

/əkˈnɒlɪdʒ/ us

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to let someone know that you have received something that they sent to you:

acknowledge receipt of sth Please acknowledge receipt of this letter.

(Definition of acknowledge from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of acknowledge

acknowledge

Working within the principles of organic agriculture and thus acknowledging the values of the system is also an important context for research.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These meetings are also acknowledged as unique opportunities for all the parties involved to share information about the product and related engineering processes.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

This would mean acknowledging the things we don't know and systematising them in the sense of seeing how they relate, what they add up to.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Conversely, the master acknowledges the rights of disciples to take their own students.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

From several other individuals we received helpful suggestions acknowledged at appropriate places throughout the paper.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

State courts continued to recognize the unique position of the marital contract into the twentieth century by acknowledging its public purposes.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Having acknowledged that, our results are generalizable to millions of children throughout the world who live in poverty (36).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Joking about frailty was also a means of acknowledging the presence of death.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

This is acknowledged by a mechanism where peer recognition is given to the designer of the source artifact.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Other forms of exchange are acknowledged, but not really discussed.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The interpretative difficulties of these reversions are heightened as soon as we acknowledge that there was more than a fictional character at stake.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

As has been seen in this brief survey, these categories acknowledge some, but not all, of the wonderful variety of material definitions the specification yields.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Music teachers should acknowledge the many generic definitions of gifted and talented achievement, to which music education can contribute.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Their role in contributing to weak corporate governance is acknowledged here.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

He acknowledged that newspaper editors had come to exercise their discretion to decide what to publish ' less wisely ' than they had done previously.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of acknowledge?

Translations of acknowledge

in Chinese (Traditional)

承認, 認可…屬實或存在, （通過信函或電子郵件等）確認收悉…

Meaning of acknowledge in English

acknowledge | American Dictionary

acknowledge | Business English

Examples of acknowledge

Translations of acknowledge

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