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Penetrate   /pˈɛnətrˌeɪt/   Listen
verb
Penetrate  v. t.  (past & past part. penetrated; pres. part. penetrating)  
1.
To enter into; to make way into the interior of; to effect an entrance into; to pierce; as, light penetrates darkness.
2.
To affect profoundly through the senses or feelings; to touch with feeling; to make sensible; to move deeply; as, to penetrate one's heart with pity. "The translator of Homer should penetrate himself with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style."
3.
To pierce into by the mind; to arrive at the inner contents or meaning of, as of a mysterious or difficult subject; to comprehend; to understand. "Things which here were too subtile for us to penetrate."



Penetrate  v. i.  To pass; to make way; to pierce. Also used figuratively. "Preparing to penetrate to the north and west." "Born where Heaven's influence scarce can penetrate." "The sweet of life that penetrates so near."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Penetrate" Quotes from Famous Books



... each other is the best sight of all. Harry Esmond became the confidant of one and the other—that is, my lord told the lad all his griefs and wrongs (which were indeed of Lord Castlewood's own making), and Harry divined my lady's; his affection leading him easily to penetrate the hypocrisy under which Lady Castlewood generally chose to go disguised, and see her heart aching whilst her face wore a smile. 'Tis a hard task for women in life, that mask which the world bids ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... wherein he showed that he had so great knowledge in his vocation that his intellect must needs overstep the bounds of that art. Wherefore, having made acquaintance with certain studious persons, he began to penetrate with his fancy into questions of time, of motion, of weights, and of wheels, and how the latter can be made to revolve, and by what means they can be set in motion; and thus he made some very good and very beautiful clocks ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari

... Englishman, Guy Cecil, be to blame? That did not seem any more likely. Manuel was afraid of Cecil, though he would not admit it, even to himself. The Englishman's chill restraint, even in moments of the most tense excitement, cowed the Cuban. Never had he been able to penetrate into his fellow-conspirator's thoughts. But that Cecil should have talked loosely of so vital, so terrible a secret? No. The grave itself was not more secretive than that quiet schemer, of whom nothing ever seemed to be ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... going to run a newspaper; they were not going to run a newspaper. There was a poem in connection with them, which mystified LINCOLN B. SWEZEY not a little; he "allowed it was darned personal," but further than that his light did not penetrate. He went to a little Club, of which he was a temporary member; it was not fashionable, and did not seem to want to be, and SWEZEY thought it flippant. There he asked, "What are the Souls, anyhow?" "Societas ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... such an account to be controversial: otherwise it could not give a true picture of contemporary opinion. Intellectual and social causes have conspired to accentuate traditional differences in ethics, and to make the questions in dispute penetrate to the very heart of morality. It has been my aim to trace the new influences which are at work, and to estimate the value of the ethical doctrines to which they have seemed to lead. The estimate has taken the form of a criticism, but ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley


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