Both Uses of
comprehend
in
And Then There Were None
- They stared at her uncomprehendingly.†
p. 186.4uncomprehendingly = without understandingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in uncomprehendingly means not and reverses the meaning of comprehendingly. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- A light touch was incomprehensible to him.†
p. 188.2 *incomprehensible = not understandablestandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in incomprehensible means not and reverses the meaning of comprehensible. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
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."