All 28 Uses of

comprehend
in
Jane Eyre

Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children's brains, but strangely impressive.†
p. 11.0

comprehended = understood completely

I hardly know where I found the hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial.†
p. 59.6

comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely

I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathise with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser.†
p. 67.0

And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what had been infused into it concerning heaven and hell; and for the first time it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing behind, on each side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf: it felt the one point where it stood — the present; all the rest was formless cloud and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of tottering, and plunging amid that chaos.†
p. 94.6

It opened clear on my comprehension that Helen Burns was numbering her last days in this world, and that she was going to be taken to the region of spirits, if such region there were.†
p. 95.1

comprehension = the understanding of something

Only one thing, I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection; — one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane.†
p. 161.3

comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely

"I will put her to some test," thought I: "such absolute impenetrability is past comprehension."†
p. 179.4

comprehension = the understanding of something

Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal comprehension.†
p. 254.3

"You have a very bad disposition," said she, "and one to this day I feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend."†
p. 276.1

comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely

And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adele, too; and even for simple dame Fairfax?†
p. 288.9

comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely

Something had happened which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen the event but myself: it had taken place the preceding night.†
p. 318.2

comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely

I could comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth.†
p. 402.9

In her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty of flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension.†
p. 403.5

comprehension = the understanding of something

"But you comprehend me?" he said.†
p. 408.9

comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely

Some time elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature.†
p. 422.1

I waited, expecting he would say something I could at least comprehend; but his hand was now at his chin, his finger on his lip: he was thinking.†
p. 436.6

comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely

It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted in a moment from indigence to wealth — a very fine thing; but not a matter one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once.†
p. 441.2

I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle them: —thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere long.†
p. 445.2

Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should comprehend better.†
p. 446.1

My first aim will be to CLEAN DOWN (do you comprehend the full force of the expression?)†
p. 450.6

As I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone — at his fine lineaments fixed in study — I comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife.†
p. 453.6

comprehended = understood completely

I comprehended how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers.†
p. 453.7

When I remembered how far I had once been admitted to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity.†
p. 457.1

comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely

I saw his fallibilities: I comprehended them.†
p. 469.1

comprehended = understood completely

Definitions:

(1) (comprehend)
to understand something -- especially to understand it completely
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

Much more rarely (and more frequently in the past), comprehend can mean to include as part of something broader. That was the first sense of the word listed in Webster's Dictionary of 1828 with this sample sentence: "The empire of Great Britain comprehends England, Scotland and Ireland, with their dependencies."