understanding
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
An agreement of minds.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhnderstandingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əndɚsˈtændɪŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
The act of one that understands or comprehends; the mental process of discernment of meaning.
countable
An agreement of minds; harmony; something mutually understood or agreed upon.
countable
Reason or intelligence; ability to grasp the full meaning of knowledge; ability to infer.
An informal contract; a mutual agreement.
countable
Opinion, judgement, or outlook.
A reconciliation of differences.
adjective
Showing compassion, tolerance, and forbearance; sympathetically aware.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The act of one that understands or comprehends; the mental process of discernment of meaning.
Used this way, understanding is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use understanding
- “He has virtually no understanding of social cause and effect.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Know and comprehend the nature or meaning of.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
In an intelligible manner.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Sympathy of each person for the other.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- appreciationnoun
- fundamentalnoun
- understandverb
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.