digest

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To convert (food) into simpler chemical compounds that can be absorbed and assimilated by an organism, as by chemical and muscular action in the digestive tract.
• intransitive verb To think over so as to understand; absorb or assimilate.
• intransitive verb To organize into a systematic arrangement, usually by summarizing or classifying.
• intransitive verb To condense or abridge (a written work).
• intransitive verb Chemistry To soften or disintegrate by means of chemical action, heat, or moisture.
• intransitive verb To become assimilated into the body.
• intransitive verb To assimilate food substances.
• intransitive verb Chemistry To undergo exposure to heat, liquids, or chemical agents.
• noun A collection of previously published material, such as articles, essays, or reports, usually in edited or condensed form.
• noun Law A systematic arrangement of abstracts from court decisions designed to simplify the locating of relevant case law.
• noun A periodical containing literary abridgments or other condensed works.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A collection, compilation, abridgment, or summary of literary, legal, scientific, or historical matter, arranged in some convenient order.
• noun Specifically [capitalized] The collection or body of Roman laws prepared by order of the emperor Justinian. See pandect.
• noun In law, a compilation of concise statements, summaries, or analyses of statutes or of reported cases, or of both, arranged in alphabetical order of subjects, usually with analytic subdivisions, so as to form a systematic compend of the authorities represented in the collection.
• noun Synonyms Compendium, Compend, etc. See abridgment.
• To divide; separate.
• To analyze and distribute into suitable classes, or under proper heads or titles, usually with condensation, so as to state results in concise form; arrange in convenient order; dispose methodically.
• To draw up in order; arrange.
• To arrange methodically in the mind; think out with due arrangement of parts; ponder; settle in one's mind: as, to digest a plan or scheme.
• To prepare for assimilation, as food, by the physiological process of digestion: applied also by extension to the action of certain insectivorous plants.
• Hence —
• To assimilate mentally; obtain mental nourishment or improvement from by thorough comprehension: as, to digest a book or a discourse.
• To bear with patience or with an effort; brook; receive without resentment; put up with; endure: as, to digest an insult.
• In chem., to soften and prepare by heat; expose to a gentle heat in a boiler or matrass, as a preparation for operations.
• To dissolve and prepare for manure, as plants and other substances.
• 10. In medicine, to dispose to suppurate, as an ulcer or a wound.—
• To mature; ripen.
• Synonyms
• To classify, codify, systematize, methodize, reduce to order.
• To study out, meditate, ponder, work upon.
• To carry on the physiological process of digestion.
• To undergo digestion, as food.
• To be prepared by heat.
• To suppurate; generate pus, as an ulcer or a wound.
• To dissolve and be prepared for manure, as substances in compost.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Law) That which is digested; especially, that which is worked over, classified, and arranged under proper heads or titles.
• transitive verb To distribute or arrange methodically; to work over and classify; to reduce to portions for ready use or application
• transitive verb (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.
• transitive verb 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.
• transitive verb To appropriate for strengthening and comfort.
• transitive verb Hence: To bear comfortably or patiently; to be reconciled to; to brook.
• transitive verb (Chem.) To soften by heat and moisture; to expose to a gentle heat in a boiler or matrass, as a preparation for chemical operations.
• transitive verb (Med.) To dispose to suppurate, or generate healthy pus, as an ulcer or wound.
• transitive verb obsolete To ripen; to mature.
• transitive verb To quiet or abate, as anger or grief.
• intransitive verb To undergo digestion.
• intransitive verb (Med.) To suppurate; to generate pus, as an ulcer.