Dictionaries › English

understanding

Pronunciation: /ʌndəˈstandɪŋ/

The English word “understanding” has 8 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The act of one that understands or comprehends; the mental process of discernment of meaning.
  2. Reason or intelligence; ability to grasp the full meaning of knowledge; ability to infer.
  3. Opinion, judgement, or outlook.
  4. An informal contract; a mutual agreement.
  5. A reconciliation of differences.
  6. Sympathy.

adjective

  1. Showing compassion, tolerance, and forbearance; sympathetically aware.
  2. Knowing; skilful.

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.

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “understanding” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.