Emily Dickinson Lexicon
Definition for UN-DER-STAND'
UN-DER-STAND'UN-DER-STAND'A-BLE
UN-DER-STAND', v.t. [pret. and pp. understood. under and stand. The sense is to support or hold in mind.]
- To have just and adequate ideas of; to comprehend; to know; as, to understand a problem in Euclid; to understand a proposition or a declaration.
- To have the same ideas as the person who speaks, or the ideas which a person intends to communicate. I understood the preacher; the court perfectly understand the advocate or his argument.
- To receive or have the ideas expressed or intended to be conveyed in a writing or book; to know the meaning. It is important that we should understand the sacred oracles.
- To know the meaning of signs, or of any thing intended to convey ideas; as, to understand a nod, a wink or a motion.
- To suppose to mean. The most learned interpreters understood the words of sin, and not of Abel. Locke.
- To know by experience. Milton.
- To know by instinct. Amorous intent, well understood. Milton.
- To interpret, at least mentally. Stalingfleet.
- To know another's meaning. Milton.
- To hold in opinion with conviction. Milton.
- To mean without expressing. War then, war, Open or understood, must be resolv'd. Milton.
- To know what is not expressed. I bring them to receive From thee their names, and pay thee fealty With low subjection; understand the same Of fish. Milton.
- To learn; to be informed. I understand that congress have passed the bill.
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