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understand Definition

under·stand (un′dər stand′)

transitive verb understood -·stood′, understanding -·stand′·ing

  1. to get or perceive the meaning of; know or grasp what is meant by; comprehend to understand a question
  2. to gather or assume from what is heard, known, etc.; infer are we to understand that you want to go?
  3. to take as meant or meaning; interpret to understand his silence as refusal
  4. to take for granted or as a fact it is understood that no one is to leave
  5. to supply mentally (an idea, word, etc.), as for grammatical completeness
  6. to get as information; learn
  7. to know thoroughly; grasp or perceive clearly and fully the nature, character, functioning, etc. of
  8. to have a sympathetic rapport with no one understands me

Etymology: ME understanden < OE understandan, lit., to stand among, hence observe, understand

intransitive verb

  1. to have understanding, comprehension, sympathetic awareness, etc., either in general or with reference to something specific
  2. to be informed; believe he is, I understand, no longer here

Related Forms:

understand Synonyms

understand

v.

  1. To comprehend

    comprehend, apprehend, fathom, take in, grasp, figure out, seize, take (one's meaning), identify with, know, perceive, appreciate, follow, master, conceive, be aware of, sense, recognize, grow aware, explain, interpret, cognize, see through, learn, find out, ken, see (into), catch, note, be conscious of, have cognizance of, wot, ween, realize, discern, read, distinguish, infer, deduce, induce, make out, make sense of, be apprized of, become alive to, have been around, experience, have knowledge of, be instructed in, get to the bottom of, get at the root of, penetrate, possess, be informed of, come to one's senses, see the light, make out, register*, savvy*, get*, get the gist of*, catch on*, get the point of*, dig*, read between the lines*, be with it*, get the hand of*, get the idea*.

    Antonyms misunderstand*, be ignorant, go astray.

  2. To suppose

    guess, conjecture, surmise; see assume 1.

  3. To accept

    concede, take for granted, count on; see agree.

understand and comprehend are used interchangeably to imply clear perception of the meaning of something, but, more precisely, understand stresses the full awareness or knowledge arrived at, and comprehend, the process of grasping something mentally one may comprehend the words in an idiom without understanding at all what is meant; appreciate implies sensitive, discriminating perception of the exact worth or value of something to appreciate the difficulties of a situation

understand Usage Examples

Object

  • importance: They recognize that there is a great variety of living things and understand the importance of classification.
  • nature: Now you say we don't understand the nature of metaphor or this process completely.
  • concept: Cannot understand concepts of integrity or duty to court.
  • implication: But I sometimes wonder whether the Government understand the implications of their own proposals.
  • meaning: For example, some users do not understand the meaning or the syntax of domain names.
  • mechanism: To control an epidemic of FMD it is essential to understand the mechanism by which the FMD virus is being spread.

Adjective complement

  • more: Retinal vessel occlusion Summary: Simple guides designed to help you understand more about your eye condition.
  • English: People cannot understand English, but reject Somalian interpreters for fear of disclosure.

Modifying Another Word

  • fully: We will neither fully understand him, nor argue him away.

Used with why or when

  • why: You begin to understand why the game ships on three CDs.
  • what: Make sure you understand what you are agreeing to.
  • where: In fact, sometimes it's quite interesting to discover where a person comes from in order to understand where they are now.
  • who: Most obvious is the intent that the recipient understands who is invited.
  • which: One strand of the research will help to understand which parts of the brain deal with complex sounds such as speech.
  • when: However, I cannot understand when others are too dogmatic.
understand Quotes

Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c'est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications. Adults never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

—Saint-Exupe¤  ry, Antoine de

   Neque enim quaero ut credem, sed credo ut intelligam. For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand.

—St Anselm

Harold Ross†had a contempt for anything he didn't understand, which was practically everything.

—Woollcott, Alexander Humphreys

Lo sguardo dei cani che non capiscono e non sanno che possono aver ragione a non capire. The gaze of dogs who don't understand and who don't know that they may be right not to understand. 185

—Calvino, Italo

If you don't believe it, you won't understand it.

—St Augustine originally Aurelius Augustinus

'I don't think I understand people very well.I only know whether Ilike ordislikethem.' 'Thenyouarean Oriental.'

—Forster, E(dward) M(organ)

Some comrades apparently find it hard to understand that democracy is just a slogan.

—Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich

I do not mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don't understand.

—Appleton, Sir Edward Victor

The people may be made to follow a course of action, but they may not be made to understand it.

—Confucius or K'ung Fu-tse,'The MasterK'ung'

   There ain't twelve hundred people in the world who understand pictures. The others pretend and don't care.

—Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard

There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!

—Kennedy,John F(itzgerald)

Sex is something I really don't understand too hot.You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away.

—Salinger,J(erome) D(avid)

Be not curious in unnecessary matters: for more things are shewed unto thee than men understand.

—Bible (Apocrypha)

Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, non lugare, neque detestari, sed intelligere. I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.

—Spinoza, Baruch also known as Benedict de Spinoza

Ce ge¤  nie particulier de la femme qui comprend l'homme mieux que l'homme ne se comprend. Awoman'sparticular talent istounderstand a manbetter than he understands himself.

—Hugo,Victor Marie

In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishingof hisideas, though it bringsgratifications, isa curious anti-climax.

—Kazin, Alfred

They who do not understand that a man may be brought to hope that which of all things is the most grievous to him, have not observed with sufficient closeness the perversity of the human mind.

—Trollope, Anthony

Ist es schwer und kann es ein AuÞenseiter begreifen,dass man eine Geschichte von ihrem Anfang in sich erlebt, vom fernen Punkt bis zu der heranfahrenden Lokomotive aus Stahl, Kohl und Dampf, sie aber auchjetzt noch nicht verl a« sst, sondern von ihr gejagt wird und aus eigenem Schwung vor ihr l a« uft, wohin sie nur st o« Þt und wohin man sie lockt. It is so difficult and can an outsider understand that you experience a story within yourself from its beginning, fromthe distant point up to theapproaching locomotive of steel, coal and steam, and you don't abandon it even now, but want to be pursued by it and have time for it, therefore are pursued by it and of your own volition run before it wherever it may thrust and wherever you may lure it.

—Kafka, Franz

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console; To be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

—Franklin, Benjamin

Wenn ein L o« we sprechen k o« nnte, wir k o« nnten ihn nicht verstehen. If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.

—Wittgenstein, LudwigJosef Johann

Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futuritycastsuponthepresent; thewordswhichexpress what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

When I do not understand, I like to say nothing.

—Sophocles

I don't consider myself dovish and I certainly don't consider myself hawkish. Maybe I would describe myself as owlishöthat is wise enough to understand that you want to do everything possible to avoid war.

—Schwarzkopf, H Norman

Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, which, to admire, we should not understand.

—Congreve,William