Both Uses of
comprehend
in
Hunger Games Book #2 (Catching Fire)
- After they've exhausted the topic of the Quarter Quell, my prep team launches into a whole lot of stuff about their incomprehensibly silly lives.†
Chpt 3 *incomprehensibly = 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.
- I stare at him uncomprehendingly.†
Chpt 27uncomprehendingly = without understandingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in uncomprehendingly means not and reverses the meaning of comprehendingly. 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
-
(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."