Definition of "digest" in English

verb

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

   • to digest laws

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.

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

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. (biochemistry, transitive, of DNA molecules) To cut with one or more restriction endonucleases.

8. (medicine, obsolete, intransitive) To suppurate; to generate pus, as an ulcer.

9. (medicine, obsolete, transitive) To cause to suppurate, or generate pus, as an ulcer or wound.

10. (obsolete, transitive) To ripen; to mature.

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

noun

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 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.