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Do you know what the word "grok" means?

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Grok (IPA /g??k/, rhymes with rock) is a verb that connotes knowledge greater than that which can be sensed by an outside observer. It is an understanding beyond empathy and intimacy. In grokking, one experiences the literal capabilities and frame of reference of the subject.
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Without reading any replies, I remember it meaning that you understand something completely, and is from some old scifi book that I read a few times whose title eludes me.
 
Originally posted by: Bryophyte
Without reading any replies, I remember it meaning that you understand something completely, and is from some old scifi book that I read a few times whose title eludes me.
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That would be "Stranger in a strange land", by Heinlein.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok

"Robert A. Heinlein originally coined the term as part of a fictional Martian language in his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where it literally means "drink" and figuratively refers to the merging of essence that encompasses the theme of the book. The term has become part of the English language, attested in dictionaries and used most by certain counterculture groups and in hacker culture.

The primary character of the book never tries to verbalize a full definition of grok, but demonstrates various instances and effects throughout the novel. A secondary, human character in the book defines the term as:

Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed?to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science?and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.
Within the book, the statement of divine immanence verbalized between the main characters, "Thou Art God", is said to be derived from grok."

 
Originally posted by: Fritzo
We're getting so lazy around here, we can't type in dictionary.com anymore 😕
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I prefer to use the define: command with a google toolbar, don't even have to change websites. 😉

On topic - I had never heard that word before..
 
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