A good English vocabulary study program (whether it’s one you’ve created for yourself, or Ultimate Vocabulary’s software program, or a combination of the two) will increase your knowledge about many aspects of the words in the English language. The word knowledge traces its etymology back to the Latin word gnoscere and the Greek word gnosis, both meaning “knowledge” (it’s may seem as if we’re going in circles, defining a word as itself, but that happens sometimes with word roots). You’ll recognize gnosis as the suffix meaning “with knowledge or understanding of” in the words prognosis (pro- means “future,” so “knowledge of the future”) and diagnosis (dia- means “completely,” so “thorough understanding of something”). For more information on this word, read this post.

We use the English word knowledge to mean one of several levels of understanding. At the most superficial level, we use the word merely to mean “awareness of something.” A synonym for the word in this context is cognizant. We can also be describing a deeper level of understanding or familiarity with a topic; in this case synonyms might be information or data. Finally, we can use the word to mean complete and thorough comprehension of a situation or topic. In this last case, we can also use the synonym erudition.

Example 1 (shallow): Alex indicated her knowledge that the train was arriving with a wave of her hand, but continued to talk to her friend at the gate.
Example 2 (medium): Alex has no more knowledge of the way train engines work than I do, but she acts as if she could take over from the engineer.
Example 3 (deep): Alex studied engineering at university, and her knowledge of steam locomotive mechanisms helped her get a summer job at the Danish Railway Museum in Odense.

Knowledge refers to something within a person, but acknowledge is often used to refer to something external. To acknowledge someone’s words is to accept that they’ve said those words, or to show that you accept the truth of those words. You can acknowledge things you have received from someone else, whether tangible (gifts) or intangible (advice). Acknowledge can also mean admitting to the existence or truth of an action or belief of your own. Here are some examples:

Example 1: The queen acknowledged the cheers of her subjects by nodding her head to either side as the carriage progressed along the pathway.
Example 2: After seeing the evidence in the charts of temperatures recorded around the world over the past decade, even the skeptics had to acknowledge that global weather patterns are changing.
Example 3: Henry will acknowledge that he stole the money if the lab results come back showing his fingerprints on the door of the bank vault.

If you continue to increase your knowledge of English vocabulary, people will definitely acknowledge your expertise with words.