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Very dull; insensible; senseless; wanting in understanding; heavy; sluggish; in a state of stupor; -- said of persons. O that men . . . should be so stupid grown . . . As to forsake the living God! Milton. With wild surprise, A moment stupid, motionless he stood. Thomson.

The quality or state of being stupid; extreme dullness of perception or understanding; insensibility; sluggishness.

The act of understanding, or supplying, something not expressed; also, that which is so understood or supplied. Trench.

nature, dignity, power, importance, or the like. It was subordinate, not enslaved, to the understanding. South.

Hence, outward or external appearance. Vain and weak understandings, which penetrate no deeper than the surface. V. Knox.

ng; being a symptom; indicating the existence of something else. Symptomatic of a shallow understanding and an unamiable temper. Macaulay.

are not distinct in sense, but one and the same thing variously expressed; for wisdom and understanding are synonymous words here. Tillotson.

To receive into the mind or understanding. "Some bright genius can take in a long train of propositions." I. Watts. (h) To receive regularly, as a periodical work or newspaper; to take. [Eng.] -- To take in hand. See under Hand. -- To take in vain, to employ or utter as in an oath. "Thou shalt not take the name of the…

on through a discourse; the general drift or course of thought; purport; intent; meaning; understanding. When it [the bond] is paid according to the tenor. Shak. Does not the whole tenor of the divine law positively require humility and meekness to all men Spart.

rives by good husbandry. Diligence and humility is the way to thrive in the riches of the understanding, as well as in gold. I. Watts.

to fail. "Till his tongue trip." Locke. A blind will thereupon comes to be led by a blind understanding; there is no remedy, but it must trip and stumble. South. Virgil is so exact in every word that none can be changed but for a worse; he pretends sometimes to trip, but it is to make you think him in danger when most…

fierce wrath. Ex. xxxii. 12. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways. Ezek. xxxiii. 11. The understanding turns inward on itself, and reflects on its own operations. Locke.

The state of being one; oneness. Whatever we can consider as one thing suggests to the understanding the idea of unity. Locks.

Want of wit or understanding; ignorance. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Understanding; apprehension. [Scot.] Sir W. Scott.

him, turned him about. Mark v. 30. A man was driven to depend for his security against misunderstanding, upon the pure virtue of his syntax. De Quincey. The virtue of his midnight agony. Keble.

gas vitiates the air. A will vitiated and growth out of love with the truth disposes the understanding to error and delusion. South. Without care it may be used to vitiate our minds. Burke. This undistinguishing complaisance will vitiate the taste of readers. Garth.

. Addison. We are divested of all those passions which cloud the intellects, and warp the understandings, of men. Southey.

A fountain; a spring; a source of continual supply. Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it; but the instruction of fools is folly. Prov. xvi. 22.

ng a conveyance of an estate, redeemable at any time on payment of the principal, with an understanding that the profits in the mean time shall be received by the mortgagee without account, in satisfaction of interest. Burrill. -- Welsh mutton, a choice and delicate kind of mutton obtained from a breed of small sheep…