penetrate

verb

Etymology: From Latin penētrātus, perfect passive participle of penētrō (“to put, set, or place within, enter, pierce, penetrate”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from penes (“within, with”) by analogy to intrō (“to go in, enter”). Compare French pénétrer.

1. To enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.

   “Light penetrates darkness.”

   “He takes the prepared charcoal used by artists, brings it to a white heat, and suddenly plunges it in a bath of mercury, of which the globules instantly penetrate the pores of charcoal, and may be said to metallize it.”

2. To achieve understanding of, despite some obstacle; to comprehend; to understand.

   “I could not penetrate Burke's opaque rhetoric.”

   “things which here were […]too subtile for us to penetrate”

3. To affect profoundly through the senses or feelings; to move deeply.

   “to penetrate one's heart with pity”

   “The translator of Homer should penetrate himself with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style.”

4. To infiltrate an enemy to gather intelligence.
5. To insert the penis into an orifice, such as a vagina, mouth, or anus.

   “a male elephant comes up and penetrates the female”

   “His weapons have been destroyed; his body has been or can be penetrated. In other words, he is rapable.”

6. To move a piece past the defending pieces of one's opponent.