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understanding

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English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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.

Noun

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understanding (countable and uncountable, plural understandings) (with of, but with for in sense of "sympathy")

  1. (gerund, uncountable) The act of one that understands or comprehends; comprehension; knowledge; discernment.
  2. (countable) Reason or intelligence; ability to grasp the full meaning of knowledge; ability to infer.
    • 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 2:
      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; […]
  3. (countable) Opinion, judgement, or outlook.
    • 1999, Vivian Patraka, Spectacular Suffering: Theatre, Fascism, and the Holocaust:
      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.
    • 2002, Ross Mackenzie, Marcus J. Borg, editors, God at 2000, page 48:
      There is a multitude of theisms, many understandings of God, even within the same religious tradition.
    • 2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
      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.
  5. (countable) An agreement of minds; harmony; something mutually understood or agreed upon.
    1. An informal contract; a mutual agreement.
      I thought we had an understanding - you do the dishes, and I throw the trash.
    2. A reconciliation of differences.
      The parties of the negotiation have managed to come to an understanding.
  6. (uncountable) Sympathy.
    He showed much understanding for my problems when he heard about my past.
Derived terms
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Translations
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
See also
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Etymology 2

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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).

Adjective

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understanding (comparative more understanding, superlative most understanding)

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

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understanding

  1. present participle and gerund of understand
    • 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:
      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.

Old English

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The spelling of this entry has been normalized according to the principles established by Wiktionary's editor community or recent spelling standards of the language.

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Proto-West Germanic *undarstandingu, equivalent to understandan +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˌun.derˈstɑn.dinɡ/, [ˌun.derˈstɑn.diŋɡ]

Noun

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understanding f

  1. intelligence
  2. perception, understanding

Declension

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Strong ō-stem:

singular plural
nominative understanding understandinga, understandinge
accusative understandinge understandinga, understandinge
genitive understandinge understandinga
dative understandinge understandingum

Synonyms

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Descendants

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