Emily Dickinson Lexicon

COM-PRE-HEN'SION, n. [L. comprehensio.]

1. The act or quality of comprehending, or containing; a comprising. In the Old Testament there is a close comprehension of the New; in the New, an open discovery of the Old. – Hooker.
2. An including or containing within a narrow compass; a summary; an epitome or compend. This wise and religious aphorism in the text, is the sum and comprehension of all the ingredients of human happiness. – Rogers.
3. Capacity of the mind to understand; power of the understanding to receive and contain ideas; capacity of knowing; as, the nature of spirit is not within our comprehension.
4. In rhetoric, a trope or figure, by which the name of a whole is put for a part, or that of a part for a whole, or a definite number for an indefinite. – Harris.