mental process of a person who comprehends; comprehension; personal interpretation: My understanding of the word does not agree with yours.
2.
intellectual faculties; intelligence; mind: a quick understanding.
3.
superior power of discernment; enlightened intelligence: With her keen understanding she should have become a leader.
4.
knowledge of or familiarity with a particular thing; skill in dealing with or handling something: an understanding of accounting practice.
5.
a state of cooperative or mutually tolerant relations between people: To him, understanding and goodwill were the supreme virtues.
6.
a mutual agreement, esp. of a private, unannounced, or tacit kind: They had an understanding about who would do the dishes.
7.
an agreement regulating joint activity or settling differences, often informal or preliminary in character: After hours of negotiation, no understanding on a new contract was reached.
8.
Philosophy.
a.
the power of abstract thought; logical power.
b.
Kantianism. the mental faculty resolving the sensory manifold into the transcendental unity of apperception.
–adjective
9.
characterized by understanding; prompted by, based on, or demonstrating comprehension, intelligence, discernment, empathy, or the like: an understanding attitude.
[Origin: bef. 1050; ME understandynge, late OE understandincge (n.). See understand, -ing1, -ing2]
to perceive the meaning of; grasp the idea of; comprehend: to understand Spanish; I didn't understand your question.
2.
to be thoroughly familiar with; apprehend clearly the character, nature, or subtleties of: to understand a trade.
3.
to assign a meaning to; interpret: He understood her suggestion as a complaint.
4.
to grasp the significance, implications, or importance of: He does not understand responsibility.
5.
to regard as firmly communicated; take as agreed or settled: I understand that you will repay this loan in 30 days.
6.
to learn or hear: I understand that you are going out of town.
7.
to accept as true; believe: I understand that you are trying to be truthful, but you are wrong.
8.
to construe in a particular way: You are to understand the phrase literally.
9.
to supply mentally (something that is not expressed).
–verb (used without object)
10.
to perceive what is meant; grasp the information conveyed: She told them about it in simple words, hoping they would understand.
11.
to accept tolerantly or sympathetically: If you can't do it, I'll understand.
12.
to have knowledge or background, as on a particular subject: He understands about boats.
13.
to have a systematic interpretation or rationale, as in a field or area of knowledge: He can repeat every rule in the book, but he just doesn't understand.
[Origin: bef. 900; ME understanden, understonden, OE understondan; c. D onderstaan.See under-, stand]
characterized by understanding based on comprehension and discernment and empathy; "an understanding friend"
noun
1.
the cognitive condition of someone who understands; "he has virtually no understanding of social cause and effect"
2.
the statement (oral or written) of an exchange of promises; "they had an agreement that they would not interfere in each other's business"; "there was an understanding between management and the workers" [syn: agreement]
3.
an inclination to support or be loyal to or to agree with an opinion; "his sympathies were always with the underdog"; "I knew I could count on his understanding" [syn: sympathy]
4.
the capacity for rational thought or inference or discrimination; "we are told that man is endowed with reason and capable of distinguishing good from evil" [syn: reason]
Sense\, n. [L. sensus, from sentire, sensum, to perceive, to feel, from the same root as E. send; cf. OHG. sin sense, mind, sinnan to go, to journey, G. sinnen to meditate, to think: cf. F. sens. For the change of meaning cf. See, v. t. See Send, and cf. Assent, Consent, Scent, v. t., Sentence, Sentient.]1. (Physiol.) A faculty, possessed by animals, of perceiving external objects by means of impressions made upon certain organs (sensory or sense organs) of the body, or of perceiving changes in the condition of the body; as, the senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. See Muscular sense, under Muscular, and Temperature sense, under Temperature. Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep. --Shak. What surmounts the reach Of human sense I shall delineate. --Milton. The traitor Sense recalls The soaring soul from rest. --Keble. 2. Perception by the sensory organs of the body; sensation; sensibility; feeling. In a living creature, though never so great, the sense and the affects of any one part of the body instantly make a transcursion through the whole. --Bacon. 3. Perception through the intellect; apprehension; recognition; understanding; discernment; appreciation. This Basilius, having the quick sense of a lover. --Sir P. Sidney. High disdain from sense of injured merit. --Milton. 4. Sound perception and reasoning; correct judgment; good mental capacity; understanding; also, that which is sound, true, or reasonable; rational meaning. "He speaks sense." --Shak. He raves; his words are loose As heaps of sand, and scattering wide from sense. --Dryden. 5. That which is felt or is held as a sentiment, view, or opinion; judgment; notion; opinion. I speak my private but impartial sense With freedom. --Roscommon. The municipal council of the city had ceased to speak the sense of the citizens. --Macaulay. 6. Meaning; import; signification; as, the true sense of words or phrases; the sense of a remark. So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense. --Neh. viii. 8. I think 't was in another sense. --Shak. 7. Moral perception or appreciation. Some are so hardened in wickedness as to have no sense of the most friendly offices. --L' Estrange. 8. (Geom.) One of two opposite directions in which a line, surface, or volume, may be supposed to be described by the motion of a point, line, or surface. Common sense, according to Sir W. Hamilton: (a) "The complement of those cognitions or convictions which we receive from nature, which all men possess in common, and by which they test the truth of knowledge and the morality of actions." (b) "The faculty of first principles." These two are the philosophical significations. (c) "Such ordinary complement of intelligence, that,if a person be deficient therein, he is accounted mad or foolish." (d) When the substantive is emphasized: "Native practical intelligence, natural prudence, mother wit, tact in behavior, acuteness in the observation of character, in contrast to habits of acquired learning or of speculation." Moral sense. See under Moral, (a) . The inner, or internal, sense, capacity of the mind to be aware of its own states; consciousness; reflection. "This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself, and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense." --Locke. Sense capsule (Anat.), one of the cartilaginous or bony cavities which inclose, more or less completely, the organs of smell, sight, and hearing. Sense organ (Physiol.), a specially irritable mechanism by which some one natural force or form of energy is enabled to excite sensory nerves; as the eye, ear, an end bulb or tactile corpuscle, etc. Sense organule (Anat.), one of the modified epithelial cells in or near which the fibers of the sensory nerves terminate. Syn: Understanding; reason. Usage: Sense, Understanding, Reason. Some philosophers have given a technical signification to these terms, which may here be stated. Sense is the mind's acting in the direct cognition either of material objects or of its own mental states. In the first case it is called the outer, in the second the inner, sense. Understanding is the logical faculty, i. e., the power of apprehending under general conceptions, or the power of classifying, arranging, and making deductions. Reason is the power of apprehending those first or fundamental truths or principles which are the conditions of all real and scientific knowledge, and which control the mind in all its processes of investigation and deduction. These distinctions are given, not as established, but simply because they often occur in writers of the present day.
Un`der*stand"\ ([u^]n`d[~e]r*st[a^]nd"), 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 just and adequate ideas of; to apprehended the meaning 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. 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.
![[P]](http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium_mh.gif){kind=small}
Audio Help [uhn-der-stan-ding] Pronunciation Key 
