digest

Verb

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
   • joining them together and digesting them into order1783, Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres

   Synonyms:

   arrange, sort, sort out

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.
   • In the morning giue them [horses] barley or prouender, a little at a time in diſtinct or ſeueral portions, tvvice or thrice one after another, ſo as he may chevv and eke diſgeſt it thoroughly, othervviſe if he rauen it, as he vvil do hauing much at a time, he rendreth it in his dung vvhole and not...1607, Conradus Gesnerus [i.e., Conrad Gessner]; Edward Topsell, “Of Handling, Taming, or Breaking of Horsses”, in The Historie of Foure-footed Beastes. […], London: […] William Iaggard, →OCLC, page...
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.
   • Feelingly digest the words you speak in prayer.1566, Henry Sidney, letter to Philip Sidney
   • How shall this bosom multiplied digest / The senate's courtesy?c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

   Synonyms:

   sort out

4. To bear comfortably or patiently; to be reconciled to; to brook.
   • I never can digest the loss of most of Origen's works.1834, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Table Talk - Toleration-Norwegians
5. (transitive) 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.
   • I was at the Mathematical School, where the Maſter taught his Pupils after a Method ſcarce imaginable to us in Europe. 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...1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Permitted to See the Grand Academy of Lagado. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London...
7. (transitive) To cut with one or more restriction endonucleases.
8. (intransitive, obsolete) To suppurate; to generate pus, as an ulcer.
   • The Lips of the Abſceſs digeſted 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 vvith mundif. ex apio, continuing the uſe of diſcutient Fomentations and Cataplaſins.1676, Richard Wiseman, “The First Book. A Treatise of Tumours. Chapter XVIII. Of an Oedema.”, in Severall Chirurgicall Treatises, London: […] E. Flesher and J. Macock, for R[ichard] Royston […], and...
9. (obsolete, transitive) To cause to suppurate, or generate pus, as an ulcer or wound.
10. (obsolete, transitive) To ripen; to mature.
    • well-digested fruits1662, Jeremy Taylor, The Measures and Offices of Friendship
11. (obsolete, transitive) To quieten or reduce (a negative feeling, such as anger or grief).

Noun

IPA/ˈdaɪd͡ʒɛst/

digest (plural digests)

1. That which is digested; especially, that which is worked over, classified, and arranged under proper heads or titles.
   • By also relating the tales included in the anthology to various facts of that development, he leaves no doubt that this volume constitutes a veritable digest of the remarkable strides made by the genre in recent years.1986 December 21, Donald Stone, “Gay Male Fiction Comes of Age in Anthology”, in Gay Community News, volume 14, number 23, page 8
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 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. The result of applying a hash function to a message.