Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition ofWebster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing. (See the entry for“digest”, inWebster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.:G. & C. Merriam,1913,→OCLC.)
We have cause to be glad that matters are so welldigested.
(transitive) To separate (the food) in its passage through thealimentary canal into the nutritive and nonnutritive elements; to prepare, by the action of thedigestive juices, for conversion into blood; to convert intochyme.
(transitive) 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.
I just ate an omelette and I'm waiting for it todigest.
1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Permitted to See the Grand Academy ofLagado.[…]”, inTravels into Several Remote Nations of the World.[…][Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London:[…]Benj[amin] Motte,[…],→OCLC, part III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdribb, Luggnagg, and Japan),page78:
I was at the Mathematical School, where the Maſter taught his Pupils after a Method ſcarce imaginable to us inEurope. The Propoſition and Demonſtration were fairly written on a thin Wafer, with Ink compoſed of a Cephalick Tincture. This the Student was to ſwallow upon a faſting Stomach, and for three days following eat nothing but Bread and Water. As the Waferdigeſted, the Tincture mounted to his Brain, bearing the Propoſition along with it.
1676,Richard Wiseman, “The First Book. A Treatise of Tumours. Chapter XVIII. Of an Oedema.”, inSeverall Chirurgicall Treatises, London:[…] E. Flesher and J. Macock, forR[ichard] Royston[…], and B[enjamin] Took,[…],→OCLC,page89:
The Lips of the Abſceſsdigeſted vvell, but from vvithin it onely gleeted, and thruſt out Fat, vvhich vve daily cut off vvithout the loſs of a drop of blood, and dreſſed up the Abſceſs vvithmundif. ex apio, continuing the uſe of diſcutient Fomentations and Cataplaſins.
That which is digested; especially, that which is worked over, classified, and arranged under proper heads or titles
1986 December 21, Donald Stone, “Gay Male Fiction Comes of Age in Anthology”, inGay Community News, volume14, number23, page 8:
By also relating the tales included in the anthology to various facts of that development, he leaves no doubt that this volume constitutes a veritabledigest of the remarkable strides made by the genre in recent years.
A compilation of statutes or decisions analytically arranged; a summary of laws.
Comyn'sDigest
the United StatesDigest
Any collection of articles, as an Internet mailing list including a week's postings, or a magazine arranging a collection of writings.
Reader'sDigest is published monthly.
The weekly emaildigest contains all the messages exchanged during the past week.
(compilation of statutes or decisions analytically arranged): The term is applied in a general sense to thePandects of Justinian, but is also specially given by authors to compilations of laws on particular topics.
