incognito [M17th] The word incognito, ‘having your true identity concealed’, came from Italian in the mid 17th century. The Latin root is cognoscere ‘to know’ (see also quaint). At first incognito was used mainly of royals or dignitaries who did not want to be officially recognized. In the 20th century the theatre critic Kenneth Tynan (1927–80) wrote, ‘The disguise…renders him as effectively incognito as a walrus in a ballet-skirt’.