comprehension
Americannoun
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the act or process of comprehending.
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the state of being comprehended.
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perception or understanding.
His comprehension of physics is amazing for a young student.
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capacity of the mind to perceive and understand; power to grasp ideas; ability to know.
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Logic. the connotation of a term.
noun
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the act or capacity of understanding
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the state of including or comprising something; comprehensiveness
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education an exercise consisting of a previously unseen passage of text with related questions, designed to test a student's understanding esp of a foreign language
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obsolete logic the attributes implied by a given concept or term; connotation
Other Word Forms
- miscomprehension noun
- noncomprehension noun
- precomprehension noun
- supercomprehension noun
- uncomprehension noun
Etymology
Origin of comprehension
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English, from Latin comprehēnsiōn-, stem of comprehēnsiō, from comprehēns(us) “understood” (past participle of comprehendere “to understand,” literally, “to seize together”; comprehend ) + -iō -ion
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Sometimes I would experience a dizzying thrill in brief moments of embodied comprehension,” she writes in reference to her piece “Angels’ Atlas” on the National Ballet of Canada’s website.
From New York Times
It seems beyond Republican comprehension that you can actually keep people away from guns — or, as Karine Jean-Pierre put it, "weapons of war."
From Salon
On general comprehension, ChatGPT answered correctly questions typically posed in this form: “If your TV set catches fire, what should you do?”
From Scientific American
Newsom often reads through his daily briefing binder three times for comprehension, underlining text and taking notes.
From Los Angeles Times
If I were responding to “Meganets” that way, it would be with 😐, which can obscure an intermittent lack of comprehension.
From New York Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
