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of an image, idea, or notion, apprehension. Conception consists in a conscious act of the understanding, bringing any given object or impression into the same class with any number of other objects or impression, by means of some character or characters common to them all. Coleridge.

An agreement or understanding between the chief European powers to take only joint action in the (European) Eastern Question.

An agreement or understanding between the chief European powers, the United States, and Japan in 1900 to take only joint action in the Chinese aspect of the Eastern Question.

ruing, interpreting, or explaining a declaration or fact; an attributed sense or meaning; understanding; explanation; interpretation; sense. Any person . . . might, by the sort of construction that would be put on this act, become liable to the penalties of treason. Hallam. Strictly, the term [construction] signifies d…

To put a construction upon; to explain the sense or intention of; to interpret; to understand. Thus we are put to construe and paraphrase our own words to free ourselves either from the ignorance or malice of our enemies. Bp. Stilingfleet. And to be dull was construed to be good. Pope.

t which is unforeseen, undetermined, or dependent on something future; a contingency. His understanding could almost pierce into future contingets. South.

t within their walls so long. Dryden. The contempt of all other knowledge . . . coops the understanding up within narrow bounds. Locke.

e so as to involve ludicrous combinations of ideas. Pepys. To be at cross-purposes, to misunderstand or to act counter to one another without intending it; -- said of persons.

Not clear to the understanding; not easily The dark problems of existence. Shairp. What may seem dark at the first, will afterward be found more plain. Hooker. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word Shak.

Unwillingness to hear; voluntary rejection of what is addressed to the understanding. Nervous deafness, a variety of deafness dependent upon morbid change in some portion of the nervous system, especially the auditory nerve.

Liable to defect; imperfect. [R.] "A defectible understanding." Jer. Taylor.

it;" an exact definition; a loose definition. Definition being nothing but making another understand by words what the term defined stands for. Locke.

y. Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Shak. A fool hath no delight in understanding. Prov. xviii. 2.

To portray to the mind or understanding by words; to set forth; to describe. Customs or habits delineated with great accuracy. Walpole.

Aberration of mind; delirium. J. Motley. Deliration or alienation of the understanding. Mede.

o develops into a well-formed animal; the mind develops year by year. Nor poets enough to understand That life develops from within. Mrs. Browning.

Something difficult; a thing hard to do or to understand; that which occasions labor or perplexity, and requires skill perseverance to overcome, solve, or achieve; a hard enterprise; an obstacle; an impediment; as, the difficulties of a science; difficulties in theology. They lie under some difficulties by reason of th…

; to reduce to a plan or method; to receive in the mind and consider carefully; to get an understanding of; to comprehend. Feelingly digest the words you speak in prayer. Sir H. Sidney. How shall this bosom multiplied digest The senate's courtesy Shak.

n; of weak perception; obtuse. Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. Job xvii. 7. The understanding is dim. Rogers.

To see by the eye or by the understanding; to perceive and recognize; as, to discern a difference. And [I] beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding. Prov. vii. 7. Our unassisted sight . . . is not acute enough to discern the minute texture of visible objects. Beattie…