All 8 Uses
comprehend
in
The Trial, by Fran Kafka
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- And the three of them did immediately retreat a few steps, the old pair even found themselves behind the man who then concealed them with the breadth of his body and seemed, going by the movements of his mouth, to be saying something incomprehensible into the distance.†
Chpt 1incomprehensible = 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.
- "In that case I can't show you," said K., quite upset, as if Miss Bürstner had committed some incomprehensible offence against him.†
Chpt 1
- It made the calmness of the girl and the man leading him all the more incomprehensible.†
Chpt 3
- "Louder," he whispered with his head sunk low, ashamed at having to ask them to speak louder when he knew they had spoken loudly enough, even if it had been, for him, incomprehensible.†
Chpt 3
- Then he began to walk up and down the room, stopped now and then at the window, or stood in front of a picture always making various exclamations such as, "That is totally incomprehensible to me!" or "Now just tell me, what are you supposed to make of that?†
Chpt 6
- I'm accumulating women to help me, he thought to himself almost in amazement, first Miss Bürstner, then the court usher's wife, and now this little care assistant who seems to have some incomprehensible need for me.†
Chpt 6
- There followed an incomprehensible, interwoven babble of shouts and replies and calls of agreement.
Chpt 7 *
- I'm grateful they sent these unspeaking, uncomprehending men to go with me on this journey, and that it's been left up to me to say what's necessary".†
Chpt 10uncomprehending = 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.
Definitions:
-
(1)
(comprehend) to understand something -- especially to understand it completely
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(2)
(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."