Dictionary Information: Definition Understand - Description Meaning Thesaurus

Understand (Un`der*stand") (?), v. t.
[imp. & p. p. Understood (?), and Archaic Understanded; p. pr. & vb. n. Understanding.]
[OE. understanden, AS. understandan, literally, to stand under; cf. AS. forstandan to understand, G. verstehen. The development of sense is not clear. See Under, and Stand.]

1. To have truth and true ideas of; to apprehend the meaning, description or intention of; to have knowledge of; to comprehend; to know; as, to understand a problem in Euclid; to understand a proposition or a declaration; the court understands the advocate or his argument; to understand the sacred oracles; to understand a nod or a wink.
(-- in ety, sic: "development of sense"?? perh. s.b. "development of this sense"?? --)
"Speaketh [i. e., speak thou] so plain at this time, I you pray, That we may understande what ye say." Chaucer. "I understand not what you mean by this." Shak. "Understood not all was but a show." Milton. "A tongue not understanded of the people." Bk. of Com. Prayer.
2. To be apprised, or have information, of; to learn; to be informed of; to hear; as, I understand that Congress has passed the bill.
3. To recognize or hold as being or signifying; to suppose to mean; to interpret; to explain. "The most learned interpreters understood the words of sin, and not of Abel." Locke.
4. To mean without expressing; to imply tacitly; to take for granted; to assume. "War, then, war, Open or understood, must be resolved." Milton.
5. To stand under; to support. [Jocose & R.] Shak.

-- To give one to understand, to cause one to know.
-- To make one's self understood, to make one's meaning clear.

Understand (Un`der*stand"), v. i.

1. To have the use of the intellectual faculties; to be an intelligent being. "Imparadised in you, in whom alone I understand, and grow, and see." Donne.
2. To be informed; to have or receive knowledge. "I came to Jerusalem, and understood of the evil that Eliashib did for Tobiah." Neh. xiii. 7.