comprehend
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English comprehenden, from Latin comprehendere (“to grasp”), from the prefix com- + prehendere (“to seize”).
Pronunciation edit
- (UK) IPA(key): /kɒmpɹɪˈhɛnd/
- (US, Canada) IPA(key): /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnd/
Audio (US) (file)
- (General Australian) IPA(key): /kɔmpɹɪˈhend/
- Rhymes: -ɛnd
Verb edit
comprehend (third-person singular simple present comprehends, present participle comprehending, simple past and past participle comprehended)
- (now rare) To include, comprise; to contain. [from 14th c.]
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- And lothly mouth, unmeete a mouth to bee, / That nought but gall and venim comprehended […].
- 1776, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Penguin, published 2009, page 9:
- In the second century of the Christian Æra, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.
- To understand or grasp fully and thoroughly. [from 14th c.]
- c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene vii:
- Our ſoules, whoſe faculties can comprehend
The wondrous Architecture of the world:
And meaſure euery wandring planets courſe,
Still climing after knowledge infinite, […]
Related terms edit
Translations edit
to cover
|
to understand
French edit
Verb edit
comprehend