Etymologically
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comprendre

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /kɔ̃.pʁɑ̃dʁ/[1]

Forms

comprendre[1] Old French cumprendre.[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin comprehendō (“to grasp, seize; to include; to understand”), in its contracted form “comprendere”.[3][2][4] Bloch and Wartburg and Wiktionary present it as inherited from popular Latin “comprendere”.[5][1] The Latin verb was formed from cum (“with”) and prehendō (“to take, seize”) (see prendre), literally “to seize together, embrace”; the intellectual sense “to grasp with the mind” appears in Cicero and lives on in all the Romance languages.[3][5][6]

Cognate with Romanian cuprinde (“to include”), Italian comprendere, Catalan comprendre and Spanish comprender.[7][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found about 1120 in the Oxford Psalter in the physical sense “to seize, catch”: e seient cumpris en la lur superbe “and let them be taken in their pride”, translating Latin comprehendantur.[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The physical sense made the word a near-synonym of prendre until the 16th century (last recorded 1604), sometimes with the violent force of “to grab”.[3][2] It gradually gave way to “to include, embrace in a whole” (late 12th century) and to “to grasp with the mind” (late 12th or early 13th century); the latter was rare until the 15th century, but from the 17th century it drove entendre out of everyday use in this sense.[2][3][5] By extension comprendre came to mean “to understand someone, accept their reasons”, now the dominant sense.[2]

Familiar nouns for “understanding, wits” were formed regionally: comprenure (Canada, 1835), comprenette (Paris, 1886–1896) and comprenoire (1926).[2][5] incompris (about 1450) has had an emotional sense, “misunderstood”, since 1831.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 1120 – Cumpris “seized” in the Oxford Psalter.[3]
  • Late 12th century – “To include”.[3]
  • Late 12th–early 13th century – “To understand”.[3]
  • c. 1450 – Incompris.[2]
  • 1604 – Last record of the sense “to seize”.[3]
  • 17th century – Replaces entendre “to understand” in everyday use.[2]
  • 1886 – Comprenette.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To include, comprise: La péninsule Ibérique comprend l'Espagne et le Portugal.[8][9]
  2. To include, count in: Le loyer ne comprend pas les charges, y compris.[8][9]
  3. To understand, grasp the meaning or reasons of: comprendre une phrase.[9][1]
  4. To understand (a person), sympathize with: Je vous comprends.[2][8]
  5. Se comprendre: to understand one another; to be understandable.[1]

Word family

  • incompris
  • comprenette
  • compris

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
  4. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2, 988a
  5. ^ a b c d e f Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  9. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse