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View synonyms for comprehension

comprehension

[ kom-pri-hen-shuhn ]

noun

  1. the act or process of comprehending.
  2. the state of being comprehended.
  3. perception or understanding:

    His comprehension of physics is amazing for a young student.

  4. capacity of the mind to perceive and understand; power to grasp ideas; ability to know.
  5. Logic. the connotation of a term.


comprehension

/ ˌkɒmprɪˈhɛnʃən /

noun

  1. the act or capacity of understanding
  2. the state of including or comprising something; comprehensiveness
  3. 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
  4. obsolete.
    logic the attributes implied by a given concept or term; connotation
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Other Words From

  • miscom·pre·hension noun
  • noncom·pre·hension noun
  • precom·pre·hension noun
  • super·compre·hension noun
  • uncom·pre·hension noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of comprehension1

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
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Example Sentences

Other species would be able to think about and solve problems in ways that are outside our space of comprehension.

The TI-84 Plus CE makes comprehension and mastery of math and science topics quicker, easier, lighter, and brighter with color graphing and a slim design.

Even today, chiaroscuro remains a powerful tool of discovery and comprehension.

Below are some illustrations of its lack of comprehension—all, as we will see later, prefigured in an earlier critique that one of us wrote about GPT-3’s predecessor.

It certainly won’t help identify life beyond our own solar system, which could be completely beyond human comprehension, like the sentient ocean of plasma that the writer Stanisław Lem imagined in his 1961 novel Solaris.

It was a small step in learning to stick to my guns, but a leap in my comprehension of phonetics.

To be clear, what Peterson (allegedly) did is abhorrent and almost beyond comprehension.

To do so in a Salvadoran prison defies comprehension and inspires respect for their grit and determination.

Nothing defeats my powers of comprehension like the deliberate harm of a child.

This is nostalgia as a recording exercise rather than a lesson in empathy or comprehension.

She has embodied in her work a modern comprehension of old legends.

It is beyond the comprehension of any man not blinded by superstition, not warped by prejudice and old-time convention.

This is given in the next few pages, and it will be found to be easy of comprehension and interesting to a surprising degree.

The mysterious letter was handed round our circle in succession, and seemed equally beyond comprehension to us all.

To Madame Ratignolle he said the music dispensed at her soirees was too "heavy," too far beyond his untrained comprehension.

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comprehensiblecomprehensive