Di·gest v. t. [imp. & p. p. Digested; p. pr. & vb. n. Digesting.]
1. To distribute or arrange methodically; to work over and classify; to reduce to portions for ready use or application; as, to digest the laws, etc.
Joining them together and digesting them into order. --Blair.
We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. --Shak.
2. Physiol. 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. 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. --Sir H. Sidney.
How shall this bosom multiplied digest
The senate's courtesy? --Shak.
4. To appropriate for strengthening and comfort.
Grant that we may in such wise hear them [the Scriptures], read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them. --Book of Common Prayer.
5. Hence: To bear comfortably or patiently; to be reconciled to; to brook.
I never can digest the loss of most of Origin's works. --Coleridge.
6. Chem. To soften by heat and moisture; to expose to a gentle heat in a boiler or matrass, as a preparation for chemical operations.
7. Med. To dispose to suppurate, or generate healthy pus, as an ulcer or wound.
8. To ripen; to mature. [Obs.]
Well-digested fruits. --Jer. Taylor.
9. To quiet or abate, as anger or grief.