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Contents
comprehend definition
Overview
This page has 3 definitions of comprehend in English and French. Comprehend is a verb. Also define these 0 related words and terms: .
English comprehend definition
Etymology
From Middle English comprehenden, from Latin comprehendere (“to grasp”), from the prefix com- + prehendere (“to seize”).
Pronunciation
Verb
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, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book 4, canto 1:
- 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 2009, p. 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 […], part 1, 2nd edition, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, OCLC 932920499; 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
Translations
to cover
to understand
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French comprehend definition
Verb
comprehend