digest

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   systematize, as by classifying and summarizing

   the government digested the entire law into a code

2. 2
   verb

   become assimilated into the body

   Protein digests in a few hours

3. 3
   verb

   arrange and integrate in the mind

   I cannot digest all this information

4. 4
   verb

   convert food into absorbable substances

   I cannot digest milk products

5. 5
   verb

   To distribute or arrange methodically; to work over and classify; to reduce to portions for ready use or application.

   to digest laws

6. 6
   verb

   To separate (the food) in its passage through the alimentary canal into the nutritive and nonnutritive elements; to prepare, by the action of the digestive juices, for conversion into blood; to convert into chyme.

   In the morning giue them [horses] barley or prouender, a little at a time in diſtinct or ſeueral portions, tvvice or thrice one after another, ſo as he may chevv and eke diſgeſt it thoroughly, othervviſe if he rauen it, as he vvil do hauing much at a time, he rendreth it in his dung vvhole and not diſgeſted.

7. 7
   verb

   To think over and arrange methodically in the mind; to reduce to a plan or method; to receive in the mind and consider carefully; to get an understanding of; to comprehend.

   Feelingly digest the words you speak in prayer.

8. 8
   verb

   To bear comfortably or patiently; to be reconciled to; to brook.

   I never can digest the loss of most of Origen's works.

Etymology

From Middle English digesten, from Latin dīgestus, past participle of dīgerō (“carry apart”), from dī- (for dis- (“apart”)) + gerō (“to carry”), influenced by Middle French digestion. Partly displaced native Old English meltan (intransitive) and mieltan (transitive), both “to melt, to digest,” whence Modern English melt.