pa. pple. and ppl. a. [f. UNDERSTAND v.]
† 1. Being made known or patent. Obs.–1
1576. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent, 152. This done and vnder stoode to the Archbishop, she was by him appointed to S. Sepulcres.
2. Comprehended; thoroughly known.
1605. Shaks., Macb., III. iv. 124. Augures, and vnderstood Relations, haue … brought forth The secret’st man of Blood.
1661. Boyle, Style of Script., 48. By the light of understood Scriptures to penetrate the sense of the obscurer ones.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 12 Oct. 1677. The gardens are large,… and the husbandry part made very convenient and perfectly understood.
3. Agreed upon; assumed as known or fixed.
1607. in W. H. Hale, Prec. in Causes of Office (1841), 9. He doth now confesse that it was an understood part of his therein.
1833. Ht. Martineau, Fr. Wines & Pol., iii. 33. There had been established a tolerably steady rate of understood value.
1853. Mrs. Gaskell, Ruth, xxiii. It was an understood thing that no one was to be ill or tired … without leave asked.
1897. Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 317. Each chief takes a certain understood value in goods as a commission for himself.
4. Gram. Implied though not expressed.
1848. J. T. White, Xenophon’s Anab., Notes, 38. Observe the adverb between the article and the understood noun, supplying the place of an adjective.
