今天遇到这个话题，回头读了一下这篇，遗憾没有一个肯定的结论
不过我觉得 在事物之中 => 分辨、理解事物 这样一个脉络是比较有说服力的
Perhaps the most transparent verb synonymous with understand is comprehend , borrowed from Old French or directly from Latin. It contains the prefix com “together” and a root meaning “to seize” (Latin prehendere ).
The Latin verb intelligere goes back to inter “between” + legere “choose, pick up” (compare Engl. “I gather you did not like the book I sent you”).
The literature on the etymology of understand and its synonyms in and outside English is huge; yet no truly persuasive conclusion has been reached. One can only see that all such verbs developed from spatial metaphors, whose idea was that standing in a certain position allows the observer to get to know the properties of the object. This conclusion is rather trivial, but the details evade us.
我看底下评论有人说 understand 是希腊语 καταλαβαίνω 逐词翻译过来的，kata 变成 under 好理解，λαβαίνω 变成 stand 就不理解为什么了，这篇也没有围绕 stand 的涵义说太多东西。
在维基调查了一下，古代希腊语中，καταλαμβάνω 既有获得获取收到的意思又有理解的意思，之后在希腊语中拆成了 καταλαβαίνω 和 καταλαμβάνω 两个词，λαβαίνω 是 λαμβάνω 的变体。
可以看出，非常有趣，希腊语和拉丁语在这里使用了相似意思的词根 (λαμβάνω 和 prehendere ) 来构建有关理解的单词，另外英语 grasp 也既有抓取又有领会的意思，我们也可以看文中关于拉丁语 intelligere 的例子，它们都很好的体现了空间隐喻。
作为外行随便看看说说的，希望有人斧正