p.pr. & ·vb.n. of understand.
2. understanding ·adj knowing; intelligent; skillful; as, he is an understanding man.
3. understanding ·noun the act of one who understands a thing, in any sense of the verb; knowledge; discernment; comprehension; interpretation; explanation.
4. understanding ·noun an agreement of opinion or feeling; adjustment of differences; harmony; anything mutually understood or agreed upon; as, to come to an understanding with another.
5. understanding ·noun specifically, the discursive faculty; the faculty of knowing by the medium or use of general conceptions or relations. in this sense it is contrasted with, and distinguished from, the reason.
6. understanding ·noun the power to understand; the intellectual faculty; the intelligence; the rational powers collectively conceived an designated; the higher capacities of the intellect; the power to distinguish truth from falsehood, and to adapt means to ends.