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Understanding vs Grasping - What's the difference?

understanding | grasping |

As nouns the difference between understanding and grasping

is that understanding is (uncountable) mental, sometimes emotional process of comprehension, assimilation of knowledge, which is subjective by its nature while grasping is the act of one who grasps or covets.

As adjectives the difference between understanding and grasping

is that understanding is showing compassion while grasping is greedy, eager for wealth.

As verbs the difference between understanding and grasping

is that understanding is while grasping is .

understanding

English

(wikipedia understanding)

Noun

  • (uncountable) Mental, sometimes emotional process of comprehension, assimilation of knowledge, which is subjective by its nature.
  • (countable) Reason or intelligence, ability to grasp the full meaning of knowledge, ability to infer.
  • (countable) Opinion, judgement or outlook.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= The machine of a new soul , passage=The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.}}
  • (countable) An informal contract, mutual agreement.
  • (countable) A reconciliation of differences.
  • (uncountable) Sympathy.
  • All that people individually sense and feel of themselves.

    • See also

    * intellection

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Showing compassion.

    • Verb

    (head)
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
    • , volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […];  […]; or perhaps to muse on the irrelevance of the borders that separate nation states and keep people from understanding their shared environment.}}

    grasping

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Greedy, eager for wealth.
  • * 1990 , (Robert Fagles) (translator), The Iliad :
    • Just how, Agamemnon, great field marshal . . . most grasping man alive, how can the generous Argives give you prizes now? I know of no troves of treasure, piled, lying idle, anywhere.

    Derived terms

    * graspingly * graspingness

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Verb

    (head)

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of one who grasps or covets.
  • * 2009 , Jed McKenna, Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment
    • These are my connections, my attachments. Maybe all I really am is the sum of all these connections, these fearful longings and graspings .

    Anagrams

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