digest

verb

1. (transitive)To distribute or arrange methodically; to work over and classify; to reduce to portions for ready use or application.

   “to digest laws”

   “joining them together and digesting them into order”

   “We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested.”

2. (transitive)To separate (the food) in its passage through the alimentary canal into the nutritive and nonnutritive elements; to prepare, by the action of the digestive juices, for conversion into blood; to convert into chyme.

   “In the morning giue them [horses] barley or prouender, a little at a time in diſtinct or ſeueral portions, tvvice or thrice one after another, ſo as he may chevv and eke diſgeſt it thoroughly, othervviſe if he rauen it, as he vvil do hauing much at a time, he rendreth it in his dung vvhole and not diſgeſted.”

3. (transitive)To think over and arrange methodically in the mind; to reduce to a plan or method; to receive in the mind and consider carefully; to get an understanding of; to comprehend.

   “Feelingly digest the words you speak in prayer.”

   “How shall this bosom multiplied digest / The senate's courtesy?”

   “Grant that we may in such wise hear them [the Scriptures], read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.”

4. To bear comfortably or patiently; to be reconciled to; to brook.

   “I never can digest the loss of most of Origen's works.”

5. (transitive)To expose to a gentle heat in a boiler or matrass, as a preparation for chemical operations.
6. (intransitive)To undergo digestion.

   “I just ate an omelette and I'm waiting for it to digest.”

   “I was at the Mathematical School, where the Maſter taught his Pupils after a Method ſcarce imaginable to us in Europe. The Propoſition and Demonſtration were fairly written on a thin Wafer, with Ink compoſed of a Cephalick Tincture. This the Student was to ſwallow upon a faſting Stomach, and for three days following eat nothing but Bread and Water. As the Wafer digeſted, the Tincture mounted to his Brain, bearing the Propoſition along with it.”

7. (transitive)To cut with one or more restriction endonucleases.
8. (intransitive, obsolete)To suppurate; to generate pus, as an ulcer.

   “The Lips of the Abſceſs digeſted vvell, but from vvithin it onely gleeted, and thruſt out Fat, vvhich vve daily cut off vvithout the loſs of a drop of blood, and dreſſed up the Abſceſs vvith mundif. ex apio, continuing the uſe of diſcutient Fomentations and Cataplaſins.”

9. (obsolete, transitive)To cause to suppurate, or generate pus, as an ulcer or wound.
10. (obsolete, transitive)To ripen; to mature.

    “well-digested fruits”

11. (obsolete, transitive)To quieten or reduce (a negative feeling, such as anger or grief).

noun

1. That which is digested; especially, that which is worked over, classified, and arranged under proper heads or titles.

   “By also relating the tales included in the anthology to various facts of that development, he leaves no doubt that this volume constitutes a veritable digest of the remarkable strides made by the genre in recent years.”

2. A compilation of statutes or decisions analytically arranged; a summary of laws.

   “Comyn's Digest”

   “the United States Digest”

3. Any collection of articles, as an Internet mailing list including a week's postings, or a magazine arranging a collection of writings.

   “Reader's Digest is published monthly.”

   “The weekly email digest contains all the messages exchanged during the past week.”

4. The result of applying a hash function to a message.