All 5 Uses of
comprehend
in
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- They didn't comprehend them.†
p. 91.5comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely
- At last I began to comprehend what girls giggled about.
p. 142.5 *comprehend = understand
- I thought fast as the couple laughed and jabbered at me in incomprehensible Spanish.†
p. 236.9incomprehensible = 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.
- Before I could fully understand, or comprehend enough to respond, Dolores opened the door, screaming still, and upon seeing me, instead of slamming the door she ran like a mad woman down the stairs.†
p. 246.4comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely
- She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.†
p. 268.9comprehended = 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."