Plural of cognovit, a legal document in which a defendant admits a case against them and gives up their right to fight it in court.
From Medieval Latin 'cognovit' meaning 'he has admitted,' from the verb 'cognoscere' (to know or acknowledge). The term entered English legal vocabulary in the 15th century when English courts adopted Latin procedural language.
This word shows how Latin never really left English law—lawyers still use 'cognovit' today as a shorthand for when someone essentially says 'you win, I admit it' before trial even happens, which sounds archaic but actually saves huge amounts of time in commercial cases.
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