Word
cognitive
Meanings
Related to mental processes such as thinking, learning, memory, and understanding.
Involving the study or treatment of how the mind works, especially in psychology or education.
Relating to mental abilities and their strength or decline, especially in health and aging contexts.
Definition
Related to the way the mind thinks, learns, and understands.
Cognitive describes mental processes such as thinking, remembering, learning, and paying attention. It is often used in psychology, education, and health to talk about how the brain processes information. For example, it can describe skills (like problem-solving) or changes (like decline with age).
Examples
- Regular sleep is important for cognitive performance.
- The course covers cognitive development in children.
- Stress can affect cognitive function at work.
- She is doing cognitive exercises to improve her memory.
Common mistake
Learners often confuse cognitive with conscience-related words and wrongly use it to mean “moral” instead of “mental.”
More at C1 level
- ubiquitous Present, appearing, or found everywhere at the same time.
- xenophobia Xenophobia is a strong dislike or fear of people from other countries or cultures.
- genocide Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular group in order to …
- conundrum A conundrum is a confusing and difficult problem to solve.
- pretentious Trying to seem more important, intelligent, or cultured than you really are.
More adjectives
- agnostic An agnostic is someone who does not claim to know whether God exists.
- pragmatic Pragmatic means focused on practical results rather than ideals or theories.
- ubiquitous Present, appearing, or found everywhere at the same time.
- cynical Cynical describes believing that people are mainly motivated by self-interest and not sincere.
- apathetic Apathetic means showing little or no interest, concern, or enthusiasm.