Word Direct Answers

What does "understand" mean?

Understand: To be apprised, or have information, of; to learn; to be informed of; to hear; as, I understand that Congress has passed the bill.

Additional senses

  1. 2.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.
  2. 3.To mean without expressing; to imply tacitly; to take for granted; to assume. War, then, war, Open or understood, must be resolved. Milton.
  3. 4.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.
  4. 5.To have the use of the intellectual faculties; to be an intelligent being. Imparadised in you, in whom alone I understand, and grow, and see. Donne.
  5. 6.To be informed; to have or receive knowledge. I came to Jerusalem, and understood of the evil that Eliashib did for Tobiah. Neh. xiii. 7.

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