Understande

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Archaic spelling of the verb meaning to grasp the meaning of something ; to have been told or to have gathered that something is the case
2. An older form of the verb for comprehending what something means ; to have heard or inferred that a thing is true
3. Obsolete variant meaning to get the sense of a matter ; to be informed of something or to conclude it from what one has heard

Etymology: "Understande" is a Middle English spelling of the verb we now write "understand," and it was used in the centuries when English spelling was still settling. The verb is built from the native Old English elements "under" and "standan" ("to stand"), a pattern shared with German "verstehen" and Dutch "verstaan." The Old English verb already carried several senses, including the literal "stand under" or "support" and the figurative "take up" or "undertake," alongside the mental sense of grasping a meaning. The mental sense is the one that stuck, and its origin is debated. Scholars generally suggest that the metaphor came from standing close to, or among, something in order to see it clearly, though the exact route from physical posture to comprehension is not firmly documented. Because the compound is so old and so transparent, its early history is mainly a story of spelling and sense, not of borrowing from another language.