All 9 Uses of
comprehend
in
The Poisonwood Bible
- Orleanna, the human body is a sight
more precious than a pair of khaki trousers from Sears and Roebuck. I'd expect you to comprehend the difference.Chpt 1 *comprehend = understand
- When we entered the first grade, we were examined by the spinster principal of Bethlehem Elementary, Miss Leep, who announced that we were gifted: Leah, on account of her nonchalant dazzling scores on reading-comprehension tests, and myself by association, as I am presumed to have the same brain insofar as the intact parts go.†
Chpt 1comprehension = the understanding of something
- Mostly he says incomprehensible things in Kikongo but also speaks like Mr. Poe's Raven a desultory English.†
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.
- He couldn't begin to comprehend, now, how far off the track he was with his baptismal fixation.†
Chpt 2comprehend = understand -- especially to understand it completely
- My sisters could not comprehend Tata Ndu's word salad of French and Kikongo, so were merely spellbound by the presence of a celebrity on the porch.†
Chpt 2
- But the fisherman stares at these men's city suits, their clean hands, and their mouths, which exaggerate incomprehensible syllables.†
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.
- While we watched without comprehension, she moved away to where none of us wanted to follow.†
Chpt 4comprehension = the understanding of something
- Tata Ndu certainly had his arrogance in the ways of command, even calling down a vote in church to humiliate my father, but in matters of life and death, I can see now, he was almost incomprehensibly polite.†
Chpt 5incomprehensibly = 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.
- And while we stay here for Anatole's teaching and organizing, and live on the next-to-nothing that work earns, we still have a measure of privilege incomprehensible to our neighbors.†
Chpt 5incomprehensible = 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.
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."