Understanding
[ʌndə'stændɪŋ] or [,ʌndɚ'stændɪŋ]
Definition
(noun.) the cognitive condition of someone who understands; 'he has virtually no understanding of social cause and effect'.
(adj.) characterized by understanding based on comprehension and discernment and empathy; 'an understanding friend' .
Typed by Harley--From WordNet
Definition
(p. pr. & vb. n.) of Understand
(a.) Knowing; intelligent; skillful; as, he is an understanding man.
(n.) The act of one who understands a thing, in any sense of the verb; knowledge; discernment; comprehension; interpretation; explanation.
(n.) An agreement of opinion or feeling; adjustment of differences; harmony; anything mutually understood or agreed upon; as, to come to an understanding with another.
(n.) The power to understand; the intellectual faculty; the intelligence; the rational powers collectively conceived an designated; the higher capacities of the intellect; the power to distinguish truth from falsehood, and to adapt means to ends.
(n.) Specifically, the discursive faculty; the faculty of knowing by the medium or use of general conceptions or relations. In this sense it is contrasted with, and distinguished from, the reason.
Edited by Bonita
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. [1]. Intellect, mind, reason, sense, brains, thinking principle, reasoning faculty, rational faculty, discursive faculty, intellectual powers, intellectual faculties.[2]. Intelligence, apprehension, comprehension, perception, knowledge, discernment, judgment, notion, idea.[3]. Agreement, accord, unanimity.
Typed by Billie
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Knowledge, discernment, interpretation, construction, agreement, intellect,intelligence, mind, sense, conception, reason, brains
ANT:Ignorance, misapprehension, misunderstanding, misinterpretation,misconstruction, mindlessness, irrationality
Editor: Omar
Unserious Contents or Definition
n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke who rode a house and Kant who lived in a horse.
Editor: Roxanne
Examples
- The understanding of the place of theory in life is a comparatively new one. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- You know, I'm a stranger here, so perhaps I'm not so quick at understanding what you mean as if I'd lived all my life at Milton. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- It, too, demands understanding and direction. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- It's because he has some understanding of a woman, because he is not stupid. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either. Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
- Why any burglar should take such a thing passes my understanding, for it was only a plaster cast and of no real value whatever. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
- But all power of a high order depends on an understanding of the essential character, or law, of heat, light, sound, gravity, and the like. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
- He was a great genius, and a noble character, yet hardly capable of feeling or understanding anything external to his own theology. Plato. The Republic.
- Then there WAS an understanding between him and Clym's wife when he made a fool of Thomasin! Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native.
- Then, her understanding was beyond every suspicion, quick and clear; and her manners were the mirror of her own modest and elegant mind. Jane Austen. Mansfield Park.
- And there could be no obligation, because there is no standard for action there, because no understanding has been reaped from that plane. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- When I missed understanding a word, there was no time to think what it was, so I made an illegible one to fill in, trusting to the printers to sense it. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- She is not a clever girl, but she has better sense than you are aware of, and does not deserve to have her understanding spoken of so slightingly. Jane Austen. Emma.
- His understanding and tastes are so superior, it does a man good to be within their influence; and as to his temper and nature, I call them fine. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- The Commissioners had a good deal of sympathy for the prostitute's condition, but for that lust in the hearts of men, and women we may add, for that, they had no sympathetic understanding. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- Third, there can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants and understandings within the general and common family of the League of Nations. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- The understandings of those who are engaged in such employments, can seldom grow torpid for want of exercise. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
Typed by Irwin