Recon

//ˈɹikɑn// noun, verb, slang

noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    reconnaissance. US, countable, slang, uncountable

    "During a scan of the Phoenix system asteroid field, you detected an odd energy reading that Tali determined was quarian in nature. She led a recon team into the asteroid field, where she discovered an abandoned freighter."

  2. 2
    The smallest genetic unit that is capable of undergoing recombination.
Verb
  1. 1
    reconnoiter. US, slang

Synonyms

All synonyms
explorationreccereccereconnaissancescouting

Example

More examples

"I spent a few weeks on the moon on a recon mission."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Contracted form of reconnaissance.

Etymology 2

Contracted form of recombination + -on, coined by American molecular biologist Seymour Benzer in 1957 as " […] the smallest element in the one-dimensional array that is interchangeable (but not divisible) by genetic recombination."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.