Comprehend Meaning
/kɒmpɹɪˈhɛnd/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo understand or grasp fully and thoroughly; to plumb.
verbTo include, comprise; to contain.
Sentence Examples
The professor was unable to comprehend what I meant.
This theory is too difficult for me to comprehend.
Vocabulary Challenge
Test your knowledge of the word "comprehend" in the LexUp app!
Take English Level Test
CEFR Practice Quiz
It took hours for the student to ____ the complex theory of relativity.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English comprehenden, from Latin comprehendere (“to grasp”), from the prefix com- + prehendere (“to seize”). Doublet of comprend.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Our ſoules, whoſe faculties can comprehend
The wondrous Architecture of the world:
And meaſure euery wandring planets courſe,
Still climing after knowledge infinite, […]"
— c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene vii:
"And lothly mouth, unmeete a mouth to bee, / That nought but gall and venim comprehended […]."
— 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
"The King being resolved to have a Peace concluded at any Rate, sent us at last to Monsieur des Farges, who would hearken to no Treaty, without allowing us the benefit of being comprehended in it, by which means our liberty was obtain'd."
— 1690, “A diary of one of the French officers that served at Morgen under the command of Monsieur de Bruham, containing several particulars relating to the former discourse”, in A Full and True Relation of the Great and Wonderful Revolution That Hapned Lately in the Kingdom of Siam in the East-Indies, London: Randal Taylor, page 21:
"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."
— 1776, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Penguin, published 2009, page 9:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
It took hours for the student to ____ the complex theory of relativity.