Understanding
adj, noun, verb ·Very common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The act of one that understands or comprehends; the mental process of discernment of meaning. uncountable, with-of
"There are certain things that defy human understanding."
- 2 the capacity for rational thought or inference or discrimination wordnet
- 3 Reason or intelligence; ability to grasp the full meaning of knowledge; ability to infer. countable, with-of
"She has a solid understanding of particle physics."
- 4 the cognitive condition of someone who understands wordnet
- 5 Opinion, judgement, or outlook. countable, with-of
"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."
Show 5 more definitions
- 6 an inclination to support or be loyal to or to agree with an opinion wordnet
- 7 An agreement of minds; harmony; something mutually understood or agreed upon.; An informal contract; a mutual agreement. countable, uncountable, with-of
"I thought we had an understanding - you do the dishes, and I throw the trash."
- 8 the statement (oral or written) of an exchange of promises wordnet
- 9 An agreement of minds; harmony; something mutually understood or agreed upon.; A reconciliation of differences. countable, uncountable, with-of
"The parties of the negotiation have managed to come to an understanding."
- 10 Sympathy. uncountable, with-of
"He showed much understanding for my problems when he heard about my past."
- 1 present participle and gerund of understand form-of, gerund, participle, present
"It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […]; […]; or perhaps to muse on the irrelevance of the borders that separate nation states and keep people from understanding their shared environment."
- 1 Showing compassion, tolerance, and forbearance; sympathetically aware.
- 2 Knowing; skilful. dated
- 1 characterized by understanding based on comprehension and discernment and empathy wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The police are really good at understanding "Someone stole my credit card and ran up a lot of charges." It's a lot harder to get them to buy into "Someone stole my magic sword.""
Etymology
From Middle English understandinge, understondinge, from Old English understanding (“intelligence, understanding”), from Proto-West Germanic *undarstandingu, from Proto-Germanic *understandingō, equivalent to understand + -ing (gerund ending). Cognate with Middle Dutch onderstaninge, Middle Low German understandinge, Middle High German understandunge.
From Middle English understandyng, understondynge, understondinde, undirstondend, understandande, from Old English understandende, from Proto-West Germanic *undarstandandī, from Proto-Germanic *understandandz, present participle of Proto-Germanic *understandaną (“to stand between, intercede, understand”), equivalent to understand + -ing (present participle ending).
Related phrases
More for "understanding"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.