comprehend

Borrowed from Latin comprehendere (“to grasp”), from the prefix com- + prehendere (“to seize”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kɒmpɹɪˈhɛnd/
• (US) IPA^(key): /kɑmpɹɪˈhɛnd/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɛnd

comprehend (third-person singular simple present comprehends, present participle comprehending, simple past and past participle comprehended)

1. (now rare) To include, comprise; to contain. [from 14th c.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.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.

2. To understand or grasp fully and thoroughly. [from 14th c.]

comprehend

1. third-person singular present indicative of comprehendre