undernimen

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Middle English

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Etymology

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From underniman (to take in, receive, comprehend, understand, blame, be indignant at, take upon oneself, steal) Cognate with Dutch ondernemen (to undertake, attempt), German unternehmen (to undertake, attempt).

Verb

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undernimen (third-person singular simple present undernimeth, present participle undernimmende, first-/third-person singular past indicative undernam, past participle undernome or undernum)

  1. (transitive) to seize; catch; grasp
  2. (transitive) to perceive or understand
    • 1858 (original: circa 1400), Mary Cowden Clarke (editor), Geoffrey Chaucer (author), The Canterbury Tales, in World-noted Women; Or, Types of Womanly Attributes of All Land and Ages, page 107:
      "And with that word Tiburce his brother come;
      And whan that he the savour undernome*
      Which that the roses and the lillies cast []
      *Undernome—undertook—took in subordinately;—as it were, dimly perceived the scent of the flowers he could not see.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
  3. (transitive) to blame; reprove; rebuke; reprimand; reprehend
    • 2004 (original: 1357–1371), John Mandeville, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville:
      Alas! that it is great slander to our faith and to our law, when folk that be without law shall reprove us and undernim us of our sins, [...]
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
    • 2012 (original: ????), Sammy R Browne, A Brief Anthology of English Literature (Lulu.com, →ISBN), page 190:
      And, when she came to the point for to say that thing which she had so long concealed, her confessor was a little too hasty and gan sharply to undernim her ere that she had fully said her intent, and so she would no more say []
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)