to penetrate
36
6.4
- verb
- /ˈpɛnəˌtreɪt/
:
comprender
- Human knowledge, by an act of imagination, sympathetically penetrates the object and knows it from within.
- penetrate beneath the surface
- penetrating analysis
- penetrate and understand
So Poirot Galileo died, never understanding, never penetrating the mystery of Saturn.
- So Poirot Galileo died, never understanding, never penetrating the mystery of Saturn.
- They cannot tolerate an ounce of criticism it it penetrates them to the core of their being.
- And because of that, they, they can't penetrate deeply enough into the other person's experience.
- And so philtre, Philtre, what goes into you, Philtre what goes in and is going to penetrate your mindset.
- Dare I say I am writing to penetrate the opaque, but I confuse it too often.
- I'm telling like because those words, those words were penetrating, bro, like false.
- I say, oh, so basically you're not willing to penetrate your client with your real insight.
- When you listen, you're penetrating into her.
- Sometimes you need the gratefulness to penetrate.
- Anyone be able to penetrate your heart in a way that you feel like you are too vulnerable.
- And yeah, because this is in a way limiting what is possible to to penetrate into you.
Examples
-
Both for its scholarship and penetrating critique of Bernal's agenda, this is an important review.
Academic text (1991) -
Mrs. Morrow stared at me, her eyes blue and penetrating from behind her bifocals.
Fiction book (1995) -
In these lessons, I will attempt to penetrate your mind.
-
How do we penetrate years, centuries, of historical distortion to find original truth?
-
I can see his eyes; their serious, strange look penetrates deeply within me...
Academic text (1999) -
In other words, if you penetrate their real feelings, you will find not hatred but bickering.
-
Why, after all this time, can't the simplest lesson penetrate Rainy's dense little brain?
Fiction book (1993) -
The teacher aimed to penetrate the complexities of the poem to help her students understand its deeper meaning.
-
His passion for the subject allowed him to penetrate the obscure theories that confused many of his peers.
-
As she listened to the lecture, the important concepts began to penetrate her understanding of the topic.
Synonyms
137
2.7
To understand the meaning of something
87
3.4
Suddenly become clear and easy to understand in your mind
82
5.0
An idea or fact finally feels very clear and real to someone
74
3.1
To make an idea or feeling understood by someone
70
3.7
To look at something carefully, often by searching under the surface
61
4.7
To look deeply into a subject to find information
59
4.1
To slowly understand and accept something
57
6.1
To understand something after much thought
57
3.6
To begin to be understood and become clear
28
4.6
To cause a sudden strong feeling in someone
1
7.5
To understand how serious or important something is
Antonyms
How Deep
Surface Forms
Morphology
penetrate = penetr + ate
The abstract sense ('to understand deeply') is a semantic extension of the verb but still depends on a non-productive Latin stem, so learners cannot infer it from the morphemes alone.
Etymology
Penetrate comes from the old Latin word penetrāre, which means 'to go into deeply' or 'reach the inside'. So to penetrate an idea is to get deep into its meaning and really understand it.