All 4 Uses of
comprehend
in
Childhood's End
- They could now make a better case for this claim than ever before, but it was safe to say that most of 2050's productions would have seemed incomprehensibly highbrow to 1950.†
Chpt 10incomprehensibly = in a manner that cannot be understoodstandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in incomprehensibly means not and reverses the meaning of comprehensibly. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
- Andrew Carson's intriguing volumes and curves changed slowly as one watched, according to complex patterns that the mind could appreciate, even if it could not fully comprehend them.†
Chpt 15 *comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely
- And it explained-if the word could be used fur anything so incomprehensible-all that had happened since that evening at Rupert Boyce's home.†
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.
- It would not have been a threat to us, and therefore we do not comprehend it.†
Chpt 20comprehend = 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."