digest

From Middle English digesten, from Latin digestus, past participle of dīgerō (“carry apart”), from dī- (for dis- (“apart”)) + gerō (“I carry”), influenced by Middle French digestion.

• enPR: dī-jĕstʹ, də-jĕstʹ, IPA^(key): /daɪˈdʒɛst/, /dəˈdʒɛst/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛst

digest (third-person singular simple present digests, present participle digesting, simple past and past participle digested)

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

   to digest laws

   • Blair

     joining them together and digesting them into order

   • Shakespeare

     We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested.

2. (transitive) 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.
3. (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.
   • Sir H. Sidney

     Feelingly digest the words you speak in prayer.

   • Shakespeare

     How shall this bosom multiplied digest / The senate's courtesy?

   • Book of Common Prayer

     Grant that we may in such wise hear them [the Scriptures], read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.

4. To bear comfortably or patiently; to be reconciled to; to brook.
   • Coleridge

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

5. (transitive, chemistry) To expose to a gentle heat in a boiler or matrass, as a preparation for chemical operations.
6. (intransitive) To undergo digestion.

   I just ate an omelette and I'm waiting for it to digest.

7. (medicine, obsolete, intransitive) To suppurate; to generate pus, as an ulcer.
8. (medicine, obsolete, transitive) To cause to suppurate, or generate pus, as an ulcer or wound.
9. (obsolete, transitive) To ripen; to mature.
   • Jeremy Taylor

     well-digested fruits

10. (obsolete, transitive) To quieten or reduce (a negative feeling, such as anger or grief)

• (distribute or arrange methodically): arrange, sort, sort out
• (separate food in the alimentary canal):
• (think over and arrange methodically in the mind): sort out
• (chemistry, soften by heat and moisture):
• (undergo digestion):

From Latin digesta, neuter plural of digestus, past participle of digero (“separate”)

• enPR: dīʹjĕst, IPA^(key): /ˈdaɪdʒɛst/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛst

digest (plural digests)

1. That which is digested; especially, that which is worked over, classified, and arranged under proper heads or titles
2. A compilation of statutes or decisions analytically arranged; a summary of laws.

   Comyn's Digest

   the United States Digest

3. Any collection of articles, as an Internet mailing list "digest" including a week's postings, or a magazine arranging a collection of writings.

   Reader's Digest is published monthly.

   The weekly email digest contains all the messages exchanged during the past week.

4. (cryptography) The result of applying a hash function to a message.

• (compilation of statutes or decisions analytically arranged): The term is applied in a general sense to the Pandects of Justinian, but is also specially given by authors to compilations of laws on particular topics.

• gisted, tidges

Borrowed from Latin dīgestus.

digest m (oblique and nominative feminine singular digeste)

1. digested