reconnaissance

noun

re·​con·​nais·​sance ri-ˈkä-nə-zən(t)s 

-sən(t)s

: a preliminary survey to gain information

especially : an exploratory military survey of enemy territory

Examples of reconnaissance in a Sentence

There are two helicopters available for reconnaissance.

They did a reconnaissance of the enemy's position.

Recent Examples on the Web

Last month, the United States Air Force carried out a far from routine flight of a variant of the Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady reconnaissance aircraft. —Peter Suciu, Forbes.com, 6 Aug. 2025

Ukraine's exploitation of Starlink connectivity has been instrumental in directing military operations, supporting battlefield communications, and controlling drones engaged in reconnaissance and offensive strikes. —Stephen Clark, ArsTechnica, 25 July 2025

At the beginning of the war, Ukraine used drones mostly for reconnaissance. —Dexter Filkins, New Yorker, 14 July 2025

Oleksandr Dmitriev, the founder of a Ukrainian system that centralizes feeds from thousands of drone crews across the frontline, told Reuters the outage was an example of the shortcomings of relying on cloud services for military operations, particularly battlefield drone reconnaissance. —Stephen Clark, ArsTechnica, 25 July 2025

Word History

Etymology

French, literally, recognition, from Middle French reconoissance, from Old French reconoistre to recognize

First Known Use

1779, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

reconnaissance

noun

re·​con·​nais·​sance ri-ˈkän-ə-zən(t)s 

: a survey (as of enemy territory) to gain information