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Explore vs Understand - What's the difference?

explore | understand |

In transitive terms the difference between explore and understand

is that explore is to (seek) experience first hand while understand is to be aware of the meaning of.

As verbs the difference between explore and understand

is that explore is to seek for something or after someone while understand is to be aware of the meaning of.

explore

English

Verb

(explor)
  • (obsolete) To seek for something or after someone.
  • To examine or investigate something systematically.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Katie L. Burke
  • , title= In the News , volume=101, issue=3, page=193, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Bats host many high-profile viruses that can infect humans, including severe acute respiratory syndrome and Ebola. A recent study explored the ecological variables that may contribute to bats’ propensity to harbor such zoonotic diseases by comparing them with another order of common reservoir hosts: rodents.}}
  • To travel somewhere in search of discovery.
  • (medicine) To examine diagnostically.
  • To (seek) experience first hand.
  • To be engaged exploring in any of the above senses.
  • To wander without any particular aim or purpose.
  • *
  • They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored' wherever they were permitted to ' explore , paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.

    Synonyms

    * (examine or investigate systematically) delve into, research

    Derived terms

    * explorer

    understand

    English

    Alternative forms

    * understaund (obsolete)

    Verb

  • (lb) To be aware of the meaning of.
  • :
  • :
  • *(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • *:I understand not what you mean by this.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author= Sam Leith
  • , volume=189, issue=1, page=37, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= 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.}}
  • To believe, based on information.
  • :
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
  • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=Foreword 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.
  • To impute meaning, character etc. that is not explicitly stated.
  • :
  • :In this sense, the word is usually used in the past participle:
  • ::
  • *(John Locke) (1632-1705)
  • *:The most learned interpreters understood the words of sin, and not of Abel.
  • *
  • *: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)
  • Usage notes

    * Common objects of this verb include text'', ''word(s)'', ''sentence(s)'', ''note(s) , etc. * Rarely, the obsolete past tense form understanded'' may be found, e.g. in the ''Book of Common Prayer'' and ''Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church .

    Synonyms

    * (to know the meaning) apprehend, comprehend, grasp, know, perceive, pick up what someone is putting down, realise, grok * (to believe) believe

    Antonyms

    * misunderstand

    Derived terms

    * I don’t understand * understandable * understanding * understood

    See also

    * explain * why