Comprise vs Understand - What's the difference?
comprise | understand | Related terms |
To be made up of; to consist of (especially a comprehensive list of parts).
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However, the passive voice of comprise must be employed carefully to make sense. Phrases such as "animals and cages are comprised by zoos" or "pitchers, catchers, and fielders are comprised by baseball teams" highlight the difficulty.
*{{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 10, author=David Ornstein, work=BBC Sport
, title= To include, contain or embrace.
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To compose, to constitute. See usage note below.
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*1657 , (Isaac Barrow), (translation), Prop. XXX
*:"Seeing then the angles comprised of equal right lines are equal, we have found the angle FDE equal to the angle ABC."
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*:Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by way of local colour) on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.
(lb) To include, contain, or be made up of ("open-ended", doesn't limit to the items listed; cf. compose , which is "closed" and limits to the items listed)
(lb) To be aware of the meaning of.
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*(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
*:I understand not what you mean by this.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author=
, volume=189, issue=1, page=37, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= To believe, based on information.
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* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
, title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=Foreword To impute meaning, character etc. that is not explicitly stated.
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:In this sense, the word is usually used in the past participle:
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*(John Locke) (1632-1705)
*:The most learned interpreters understood the words of sin, and not of Abel.
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*:Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well.
To stand under; to support.
:(Shakespeare)
Comprise is a related term of understand.
As verbs the difference between comprise and understand
is that comprise is to be made up of; to consist of (especially a comprehensive list of parts) while understand is (lb) to be aware of the meaning of.comprise
English
Verb
(compris)However, the passive voice of comprise must be employed carefully to make sense. Phrases such as "animals and cages are comprised by zoos" or "pitchers, catchers, and fielders are comprised by baseball teams" highlight the difficulty.
Arsenal 1-0 Everton, passage=Arsenal were playing without a recognised full-back - their defence comprising four centre-halves - and the lack of width was hindering their progress.}}
Usage notes
* Traditionally, a team comprised its members, whereas the members composed'' the team. (The ''Associated Press Stylebook'' advises journalists to maintain this distinction.) The sense "compose, constitute" — as in "the members comprise the team" — is sometimes considered incorrect. According to '' also state that it is an increasingly frequent and accepted usage. * The use of "of" with the verb in the active (rather than passive) tense is always incorrect, hence *"the UK comprises of four countries" and *"four countries comprise of the UK" are incorrect.External links
* * English words affected by confusion English words affected by prescriptivism ----understand
English
Alternative forms
* understaund (obsolete)Verb
Sam Leith
Where the profound meets the profane, passage=Swearing doesn't just mean what we now understand by "dirty words". It is entwined, in social and linguistic history, with the other sort of swearing: vows and oaths.}}
citation, passage=‘I understand that the district was considered a sort of sanctuary,’ the Chief was saying. ‘An Alsatia like the ancient one behind the Strand, or the Saffron Hill before the First World War.
