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Knowing; wide awake; fully understanding another's meaning. [Slang] Dickens.

One destitute of reason, or of the common powers of understanding; an idiot; a natural.

Marked with, or exhibiting, folly; void of understanding; weak in intellect; without judgment or discretion; silly; unwise. I am a very foolish fond old man. Shak.

To grope about in perplexity; to seek awkwardly; as, to fumble for an excuse. Dryden. My understanding flutters and my memory fumbles. Chesterfield. Alas! how he fumbles about the domains. Wordsworth.

The act of obtaining or acquiring; acquisition. With all thy getting, get understanding. Prov. iv. 7.

g faith is "no more than a simple assent to the divine testimone passively recived by the understanding." The English and American adherents of this faith are called Sandemanians, after Robert Sandeman, the son-in-law and disciple of Glass.

The seat of the intellect; the brain; the understanding; the mental faculties; as, a good head, that is, a good mind; it never entered his head, it did not occur to him; of his own head, of his own thought or will. Men who had lost both head and heart. Macaulay.

Destitute of understanding or prudence; foolish; rash; obstinate. [Obs.] Witless headiness in judging or headless hardiness in condemning. Spenser.

Understanding; mental faculty. Eumenes had the best headpiece of all Alexander's captains. Prideaux.

or separately, as love, hate, joy, grief, courage, and the like; rarely, the seat of the understanding or will; -- usually in a good sense, when no epithet is expressed; the better or lovelier part of our nature; the spring of all our actions and purposes; the seat of moral life and character; the moral affections and…

tual powers, whether congenital, developmental, or accidental; commonly, a person without understanding from birth; a natural fool; a natural; an innocent. Life . . . is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Shak.

A complicated and embarrassing state of things; a serious misunderstanding. Wrestling to free itself from the baleful imbroglio. Carlyle.

icable; incapable of being communicated, shared, told, or imparted, to others. Health and understanding are incommunicable. Southey. Those incommunicable relations of the divine love. South. -- In`com*mu"ni*ca*ble*ness, n. -- In`com*mu"ni*ca*bly, adv.

Want of comprehension or understanding. "These mazes and incomprehensions." Bacon.

Not comprehensive; not capable of including or of understanding; not extensive; limited. -- In*com`pre*hen"sive*ly, a. Sir W. Hamilton. -- In*com`pre*hen"sive*ness, n. T. Warton.

Indefiniteness; vagueness; also, number or quantity not limited by our understanding, though yet finite. [Obs.] Sir M . Hale.

dom and goodness of God; -- opposed to finite. Great is our Lord, and of great power; his understanding is infinite. Ps. cxlvii. 5. O God, how infinite thou art! I. Watts.

." Milton. As pleasing to the fancy, as speculations of eternity or infinitude are to the understanding. Addison.

objects in their relations; the power to judge and comprehend; the thinking faculty; the understanding.

A mental act or process; especially: (a) The act of understanding; simple apprehension of ideas; intuition. Bentley. (b) A creation of the mind itself. Hickok.