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The science of the understanding; intellectual science.

d or decide; puzzle; quandary. Both of them are a perfect nonplus and baffle to all human understanding. South.

y, but we make nothing of suffering our souls to be slaves to our lusts." Ray. (b) Not to understand; as, I could make nothing of what he said.

Intellect; understanding; talent; -- used humorously.

Hidden from the eye or the understanding; inviable; secret; concealed; unknown. It is of an occult kind, and is so insensible in its advances as to escape observation. I. Taylor. Occult line (Geom.), a line drawn as a part of the construction of a figure or problem, but not to appear in the finished plan. -- Occult qu…

t them. Swift. All the odds between them has been the different s "cope....given to their understandings to range in. Locke. Judging is balancing an account and determining on which side the odds lie. Locke.

judgment in regard to any point of knowledge or action. Opinion is when the assent of the understanding is so far gained by evidence of probability, that it rather inclines to one persussion than to another, yet not without a mixture of incertainty or doubting. Sir M. Hale. I can not put off my opinion so easily. Shak.…

will sleep soundly, -- written, being, and exhaustedare participles. By a participle, [I understand] a verb in an adjectival aspect. Earle.

or joining together their money, goods, labor, and skill, or any or all of them, under an understanding that there shall be a communion of profit between them, and for the purpose of carrying on a legal trade, business, or adventure. Kent. Story.

inner contents or meaning of, as of a mysterious or difficult subject; to comprehend; to understand. Things which here were too subtile for us to penetrate. Ray.

mind; to be convinced of by direct intuition; to note; to remark; to discern; to see; to understand. Jesus perceived their wickedness. Matt. xxii. 18. You may, fair lady, Perceive I speak sincerely. Shak. Till we ourselves see it with our own eyes, and perceive it by our own understandings, we are still in the dark. L…

hat was thought obscure, perplexed, and too hard for our weak parts, will lie open to the understanding in a fair view. Locke.

The quality of being perspicuous to the understanding; clearness of expression or thought.

Clear to the understanding; capable of being clearly understood; clear in thought or in expression; not obscure or ambiguous; as, a perspicuous writer; perspicuous statements. "The purpose is perspicuous." Shak. -- Per*spic"u*ous*ly, adv. -- Per*spic"u*ous*ness, n.

ell take the ply. Bacon. Boswell, and others of Goldsmith's contemporaries, . . . did not understand the secret plies of his character. W. Irving. The czar's mind had taken a strange ply, which it retained to the last. Macaulay.

eful, in distinction from ideal or theoretical; as, practical chemistry. "Man's practical understanding." South. "For all practical purposes." Macaulay.

This previously known, or which should be known in order to understand something else.

introductory to the main subject; to offer previously, as something to explain or aid in understanding what follows; especially, to lay down premises or first propositions, on which rest the subsequent reasonings. I premise these particulars that the reader may know that I enter upon it as a very ungrateful task. Addi…

o shuffle; to quibble; as, he prevaricates in his statement. He prevaricates with his own understanding. South.

Going before; preceding. [Obs.] Any previous counsel or preventive understanding. Cudworth.