Etymologically
Log in

comprehension

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 05:44. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˌkɒmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/[1]
  • US: /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English comprehensioun,[2] borrowed from Latin comprehēnsiō (“a seizing, laying hold of; perception”),[3][4][5][6] partly also borrowed from Middle French compréhension, recorded in French from the 15th century.[4][3][7][8] The Latin noun is formed from comprehēnsus, the past participle of comprehendō (“to take together; to include; to grasp with the mind”), the source of comprehend.[3][5][6][4] The verb is formed from com-, here probably intensive, and prehendō (“to catch hold of, seize”),[4] which Etymonline derives from prae- and the root Proto-Indo-European *ghend- (“to seize, take”).[4] According to Klein, Cicero introduced the Latin noun as a loan translation of Ancient Greek κατάληψις (katálēpsis), a Stoic term for perception.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Understanding, the full taking in of a matter, and also an aggregation or summing up: about 1445, in Reginald Pecock's Donet.[2] Etymonline also dates the sense "act or fact of understanding" to the mid-15th century.[4]

Semantic evolution

Like the Latin verb, the English noun had two branches: including and understanding.[3] The OED's first record is for inclusion, in 1541, in a defence written by Thomas Wyatt;[3][4] Johnson (1755) still listed "the act or quality of comprising or containing" first.[10] In 1668 Pepys used it for the planned inclusion of the Nonconformists in the Church of England, a sense of English church history.[3] The sense of comprehensiveness, inclusive force, is recorded from 1614, in Selden,[3] and in logic the word was used from 1725, in Isaac Watts, for the sum of the attributes contained in a concept.[3] The mental sense is in the Chester Plays before 1600, and in 1597, in Hooker, for the state of understanding something;[3] Etymonline dates the capacity of the mind to understand to the 1590s.[4] In education, a comprehension is a test of a pupil's understanding of a passage of text, a use recorded from 1921 in Cyril Burt's Mental and Scholastic Tests.[3][4]

Timeline

  • c. 1445 – understanding; also, summing up, in Pecock's Donet.[2]
  • 1541 – inclusion, the act of comprising.[3][4]
  • 1553 – a term of rhetoric, in Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique.[3]
  • 1597 – the state of understanding something.[3]
  • 1614 – comprehensiveness.[3]
  • 1668 – the inclusion of Nonconformists in the Established Church.[3]
  • 1725 – in logic, the attributes contained in a concept.[3]
  • 1921 – a test of understanding a passage of text.[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The act or ability of understanding: The question was beyond his comprehension.[11][7][3]
  2. An exercise in which pupils read a passage of text and answer questions on it, used to test reading or a foreign language.[11][3]
  3. The act of including or comprising things; inclusion.[11][7][3]
  4. Comprehensiveness, the quality of including much.[11][7][3]
  5. (logic) The sum of the attributes implied by a concept; intension.[11][3]

Word family

  • incomprehension
  • miscomprehension
  • noncomprehension
  • uncomprehension

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins