undernimen

undernimen

Middle English

Etymology

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

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.

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, [...]

   • 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 […]