comprehensible

adjective com·pre·hen·si·ble \ ˌkäm-pri-ˈhen(t)-sə-bəl , -prē- \

|Updated on: 30 May 2018

Examples: comprehensible in a Sentence

Definition of comprehensible

: capable of being comprehended : intelligible

a comprehensible explanation

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comprehensibility

play \ˌkäm-pri-ˌhen(t)-sə-ˈbi-lə-tē, -prē-\ noun

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comprehensibleness

play \ˌkäm-pri-ˈhen(t)-sə-bəl-nəs, -prē-\ noun

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comprehensibly

play \ˌkäm-pri-ˈhen(t)-sə-blē, -prē-\ adverb

See comprehensible defined for English-language learners

Examples of comprehensible in a Sentence

a book that makes the subject of longitude comprehensible to most laymen

Recent Examples of comprehensible from the Web

But China is perhaps too distant, both geographically and culturally, to serve as a readily comprehensible antagonist.

— peter slezkine, The New Republic, "What Happened to the “Free World”?," 22 May 2018
This is another of the main purposes of poetry: to make experience visible if not comprehensible or less painful.

— craig morgan teicher, latimes.com, "Poet Li-Young Lee articulates life’s interminable uncertainties," 30 Mar. 2018
If Trump had chosen to violate that norm and fire Comey (or ask him to resign) during the lame-duck period, that would have been a controversial move but at least a comprehensible one.

— matthew yglesias, Vox, "The simplest, most important question the Trump administration can’t answer," 4 May 2018
The recordings Alexa delivers to me are comprehensible, but Dad’s mumbles and pauses make the transcriptions incomplete or inaccurate.

— ian bogost, The Atlantic, "Alexa Is a Revelation for the Blind," 15 Apr. 2018
And though the shadow puppetry was delightful (if not always narratively comprehensible to non-native speakers), it was rendered without magnification and was thus difficult to see in detail.

— david mermelstein, WSJ, "Wu Man and the Huayin Shadow Puppet Band Review: China’s Musical Time Machine," 15 Mar. 2018
That would make the world, to the left, comprehensible, instead of peopled by a whole bunch of voters whose consumer choices on the political marketplace appear not only incomprehensible, but, more importantly, reprehensible.

— eve fairbanks, The New Republic, "Buying In: How the Language of the Market Has Warped American Politics," 9 Mar. 2018
The story's barely comprehensible, and the game's missing features have slowly been added one at a time since it was released in the fall of 2016.

— joshua rivera, GQ, "Final Fantasy XV: Comrades: Sometimes the Best Video Games Are the Busted Ones," 22 Jan. 2018
Both causes were comprehensible enough to U.S. audiences.

— daniel d'addario, Time, "The PyeongChang Olympics Opening Ceremony Put America in an Unfamiliar Position — Excluded," 11 Feb. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'comprehensible.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.