Understanding

/ʌndəˈstandɪŋ/ · noun

Meaning

(uncountable) The act of one that understands or comprehends; the mental process of discernment of meaning..

Definitions by Sense

1. (uncountable) The act of one that understands or comprehends; the mental process of discernment of meaning.
2. (countable) Reason or intelligence; ability to grasp the full meaning of knowledge; ability to infer.
3. (countable) Opinion, judgement, or outlook.
4. (countable) An agreement of minds; harmony; something mutually understood or agreed upon.
5. (uncountable) Sympathy.
6. Showing compassion, tolerance, and forbearance; sympathetically aware.
7. (dated) Knowing; skilful.
8. present participle and gerund of understand

Example Sentences

There are certain things that defy human understanding.

The Ways of Heav’n are dark and intricate, Puzzled in Mazes, and perplext with Errors; Our Underſtanding traces ’em in vain, Loſt and bewilder’d in the fruitleſs Search; […]

She has a solid understanding of particle physics.

According to my understanding, the situation is quite perilous. I wonder if you see it this way, too.

It is the goneness of the Holocaust that produces the simultaneous profusion of discourses and understandings; the goneness is what opens up, what spurs, what unleashes the perpetual desire to do, to make, to rethink the Holocaust.

There is a multitude of theisms, many understandings of God, even within the same religious tradition.

The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.

He showed much understanding for my problems when he heard about my past.

Synonyms for understanding

Antonyms for understanding

Related Words

Word Forms

• understandings
• more understanding
• most understanding

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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