Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Digest

Digest , transitive verb

[Latin digestus, past participle of digerere to separate, arrange, dissolve, digest; di- = dis- + gerere to bear, carry, wear. See Jest.]

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. — Shakespeare
2.
(Physiology) 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? — Shakespeare
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.
(Chemistry) To soften by heat and moisture; to expose to a gentle heat in a boiler or matrass, as a preparation for chemical operations.
7.
(Medicine) To dispose to suppurate, or generate healthy pus, as an ulcer or wound.
8.
To ripen; to mature. [Obsolete]
Well-digested fruits. — Jer. Taylor
9.
To quiet or abate, as anger or grief.

Digest , intransitive verb

1.
To undergo digestion; as, food digests well or ill.
2.
(Medicine) To suppurate; to generate pus, as an ulcer.

Digest , noun

[Latin digestum, pl. digesta, neut., from digestus, p. p.: compare French digeste. See Digest, transitive verb]

(Law) That which is digested; especially, that which is worked over, classified, and arranged under proper heads or titles
(Law) A compilation of statutes or decisions analytically arranged. The term is applied in a general sense to the Pandects of Justinian (see Pandect), but is also specially given by authors to compilations of laws on particular topics; a summary of laws; as, Comyn's Digest; the United States Digest.
A complete digest of Hindu and Mahommedan laws after the model of Justinian's celebrated Pandects. — Sir W. Jones
They made a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the Rights of Man. — Burke