All 14 Uses of
comprehend
in
The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
- Their freedom of expression was at first incomprehensible to her, though she had no difficulty in reconciling it with a lofty chastity which in the Creole woman seems to be inborn and unmistakable.†
Chpt 4incomprehensible = 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.
- I don't comprehend half of them.†
Chpt 10comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely
- I can't make it more clear; it's only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.†
Chpt 16
- It was not that she dwelt upon details of their acquaintance, or recalled in any special or peculiar way his personality; it was his being, his existence, which dominated her thought, fading sometimes as if it would melt into the mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled her with an incomprehensible longing.†
Chpt 18incomprehensible = 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.
- Whereupon Victor administered a rebuke in the form of a volley of abuse, which, owing to its rapidity and incoherence, was all but incomprehensible to Edna.†
Chpt 20
- Of course, he couldn't think of telling Mrs. Pontellier all about it, she being a woman and not comprehending such things.†
Chpt 20comprehending = understanding
- Edna marveled, not comprehending.†
Chpt 23
- To Madame Ratignolle he said the music dispensed at her soirees was too "heavy," too far beyond his untrained comprehension.†
Chpt 23comprehension = the understanding of something
- He meant to stop at the wedding on his way to New York and endeavor by every means which money and love could devise to atone somewhat for Edna's incomprehensible action.†
Chpt 24incomprehensible = 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.
- I only half comprehend her.
Chpt 27 *comprehend = completely understand
- She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to took upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality.†
Chpt 28comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely
- "Day before yesterday!" she repeated, aloud; and went on thinking to herself, "day before yesterday," in a sort of an uncomprehending way.†
Chpt 33uncomprehending = not understandingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in uncomprehending means not and reverses the meaning of comprehending. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- I've been working with a little more comprehension than a machine, and still feeling like a lost soul.†
Chpt 33comprehension = the understanding of something
- It took Victor some little time to comprehend that she had come in Beaudelet's lugger, that she had come alone, and for no purpose but to rest.†
Chpt 39comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it 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."