comprehension

noun com·pre·hen·sion \ ˌkäm-pri-ˈhen(t)-shən , -prē- \

Updated on: 17 May 2018

Definition of comprehension

1 a : the act or action of grasping with the intellect : understanding

children who have difficulty with comprehension of spoken language

What the artist actually needs is comprehension of his aims and ideals by men he respects …
—H. L. Mencken

b : knowledge gained by comprehending

tests that measure the students' comprehension in math

She carried on with full comprehension of the risk involved.

c : the capacity for understanding fully

mysteries that are beyond our comprehension

The war caused suffering beyond comprehension.

2 a : the act or process of comprising

the comprehension of all the denominations into one Church

b : the faculty or capability of including : comprehensiveness

the broad comprehension of the word "animal"

3 : connotation 3

See comprehension defined for English-language learners

See comprehension defined for kids

Examples of comprehension in a Sentence

The students showed excellent reading comprehension.
the president's comprehension of the current situation in the Middle East

Recent Examples of comprehension from the Web

What’s up next for the Celtics is almost beyond comprehension.

— nathaniel friedman, GQ, "The Celtics Are The Most Likable Team Left Standing," 11 May 2018
To us the similarity of complaints, symptoms and objective findings is almost beyond comprehension.

— johnny miller, San Francisco Chronicle, "Copter pilot faulted in crash that killed Bill Graham," 2 May 2018
Taking another guard, despite having Jack Mewhort on the roster? Perplexing beyond comprehension.

— andy benoit, SI.com, "NFL Draft Grades: Analysis of Every Second- and Third-Round Pick," 27 Apr. 2018
For most of us, the notion of someone spending $7 million to help another person run for governor is beyond comprehension.

— george skelton, latimes.com, "Big spending turns California's race for governor into a proxy war between teachers unions, charter school backers," 19 Apr. 2018
Thus, someone could be below average overall but still have math be their strongest subject or could be well above average in reading comprehension yet be relatively better with science.

— john timmer, Ars Technica, "Women go into science careers more often in countries without gender equality," 19 Feb. 2018
The two companies independently revealed that their artificial intelligence systems beat humans at a test of reading comprehension.

— dana g. smith, Scientific American, "How to Hack an Intelligent Machine," 22 Jan. 2018
Low-income children know thousands of words fewer than more affluent children, negatively affecting their communication, listening, comprehension and critical thinking skills.

— lisa deaderick, sandiegouniontribune.com, "Helping others achieve greater literacy," 14 Apr. 2018
The tests then ask questions designed to assess comprehension: What’s the main idea of the passage?

— natalie wexler, The Atlantic, "Why American Students Haven't Gotten Better at Reading in 20 Years," 13 Apr. 2018

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