"relating to knowledge," especially mystical or esoteric knowledge of spiritual things, 1650s, from Greek gnÅstikos "knowing, good at knowing, able to discern," from gnÅstos "known, perceived, understood," earlier gnÅtos, from gignÅskein "learn to know, come to know, perceive; discern, distinguish; observe, form a judgment," from PIE *gi-gno-sko-, reduplicated and suffixed form of root *gno- "to know."