All 4 Uses of
comprehend
in
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
- Tess made no reply to this remark, of which, indeed, she did not quite comprehend the drift, unheeding the snub she had administered by her instinctive rub upon her cheek.†
Chpt 1 *comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely
- A wet day was the expression of irremediable grief at her weakness in the mind of some vague ethical being whom she could not class definitely as the God of her childhood, and could not comprehend as any other.†
Chpt 2
- His lips could not have pronounced more plainly, "It will soon be you and I." Her comprehension appeared in her face; she could not help it.†
Chpt 3comprehension = the understanding of something
- She reflected; and with her acute memory for the letter of Angel Clare's remarks, even when she did not comprehend their spirit, she recalled a merciless polemical syllogism that she had heard him use when, as it occasionally happened, he indulged in a species of thinking aloud with her at his side.†
Chpt 6comprehend = 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."