deprehend

From Latin deprehendere, deprehensum, from de- + prehendere (“to lay hold of, seize”). See prehensile.

• IPA^(key): /ˌdɛpɹəˈhɛnd/

• Audio (US):

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deprehend (third-person singular simple present deprehends, present participle deprehending, simple past and past participle deprehended) (obsolete)

1. To take unawares or by surprise; to catch or seize (a criminal etc.) in the act.
   • 1655, Jeremy Taylor, Unum Necessarium:

     The deprehended adulteress

2. To detect; to discover; to find out.
   • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:

     The motions of the minute parts of bodies […] are to be deprehended by experience.

• deprehension

• “deprehend”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• prehended