Both Uses of
comprehend
in
Much Ado About Nothing
- This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the prince's name.†
Scene 3.3comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely
- One word, sir: our watch, sir, hath indeed comprehended two aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship.†
Scene 3.5 *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."