understanding

noun

1. (uncountable, with-of)The act of one that understands or comprehends; the mental process of discernment of meaning.

   “There are certain things that defy human understanding.”

   “The Ways of Heav’n are dark and intricate, Puzzled in Mazes, and perplext with Errors; Our Underſtanding traces ’em in vain, Loſt and bewilder’d in the fruitleſs Search; […]”

2. (countable, with-of)Reason or intelligence; ability to grasp the full meaning of knowledge; ability to infer.

   “She has a solid understanding of particle physics.”

3. (countable, with-of)Opinion, judgement, or outlook.

   “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.”

   “There is a multitude of theisms, many understandings of God, even within the same religious tradition.”

   “The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.”

   “According to my understanding, the situation is quite perilous. I wonder if you see it this way, too.”

4. (countable, uncountable, with-of)An agreement of minds; harmony; something mutually understood or agreed upon.

   “I thought we had an understanding - you do the dishes, and I throw the trash.”

5. (countable, uncountable, with-of)An agreement of minds; harmony; something mutually understood or agreed upon.

   “The parties of the negotiation have managed to come to an understanding.”

6. (uncountable, with-of)Sympathy.

   “He showed much understanding for my problems when he heard about my past.”

adj

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

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of understand

   “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.”