different between involve vs understand

English

Alternative forms

• envolve

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin involv?.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?n?v?lv/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?n?v?lv/
• Hyphenation: in?volve

Verb

involve (third-person singular simple present involves, present participle involving, simple past and past participle involved)

1. (archaic) To roll or fold up; to wind round; to entwine.
2. (archaic) To envelop completely; to surround; to cover; to hide.
   • Black vapors, issuing from the vent, involve the sky.
3. To complicate or make intricate, as in grammatical structure.

   • the fallacies that are often concealed in florid, witty, or involved discourses.
4. (archaic) To connect with something as a natural or logical consequence or effect; to include necessarily; to imply.
   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost Book II

     He knows / His end with mine involved.

   • a. 1694, John Tillotson, Sermon

     The contrary necessarily involves a contradiction.
5. To take in; to gather in; to mingle confusedly; to blend or merge.
   • 1728-1743, Alexander Pope, The Dunciad

     The gathering number, as it moves along,
     Involves a vast involuntary throng.

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost Book II

     Earth with hell / To mingle and involve.

6. To envelop, enfold, entangle.

   He's involved in the crime.

7. To engage (someone) to participate in a task.

   How can we involve the audience more during the show?

   By getting involved in her local community, Mary met lots of people and also helped make it a nicer place to live.
8. (mathematics) To raise to any assigned power; to multiply, as a quantity, into itself a given number of times.

Synonyms

• imply
• include
• implicate
• complicate
• entangle
• embarrass
• overwhelm

Translations

See also

• involver
• voluble
• involute

References

• involve in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Latin

Verb

involve

1. second-person singular present active imperative of involv?

English

Alternative forms

• understaund (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English understanden, from Old English understandan (“to understand”), from Proto-Germanic *under (“between”) + *standan? (“to stand”), equivalent to Old English under- (“between, inter-”) + standan (“to stand”). Cognate with Old Frisian understonda (“to understand, experience, learn”), Old High German understantan (“to understand”), Middle Danish understande (“to understand”). Compare also Saterland Frisian understunda, unnerstounde (“to dare, survey, measure”), Dutch onderstaan (“to undertake, presume”), German unterstehen (“to be subordinate”). More at inter-, stand.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ?n(?)d?r-st?nd', IPA^(key): /(?)?nd??stænd/,
• (General American) enPR: ?n?d?r-st?nd', IPA^(key): /??nd??stænd/, [??????stænd], [??????ste??nd]
• (Ireland) IPA^(key): /??nd???stand/
• Rhymes: -ænd
• Hyphenation: un?der?stand

Verb

understand (third-person singular simple present understands, present participle understanding, simple past and past participle understood)

1. (transitive) To grasp a concept fully and thoroughly, especially (of words, statements, art, etc.) to be aware of the meaning of and (of people) to be aware of the intent of.
   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 20:

     ‘I came back here, had a wank and finished that book.’
     ‘The Naked Lunch?’
     ‘Yeah.’
     ‘What did you reckon?’
     ‘Crap.’
     ‘You're just saying that because you didn't understand it,’ said Adrian.
     ‘I'm just saying that because I did understand it,’ said Tom. ‘Any road up, we'd better start making some toast.’

2. To believe, to think one grasps sufficiently despite potentially incomplete knowledge.

3. (humorous, rare, obsolete outside circus, acrobatics) To stand underneath, to support.

Usage notes

• In its sense of "imputing meaning", use is usually limited to the past participle understood.
• The obsolete perfect form understanded is occasionally found, e.g. in the Book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church.

Synonyms

• (to fully grasp a concept): apprehend, comprehend, grasp, know, perceive, pick up what someone is putting down, realise, grok
• (to believe one grasps a concept): believe

Antonyms

• misunderstand

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• explain
• why

Further reading

• understand in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• understand in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• unstranded