{{Delete Notice}}'''Grok ''' (pronounced GROCK) is a verb from [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s science fiction novel, ''Stranger in a Strange Land'' (1961). In it , a [[Mars|Martian ]] visits earth and brings his language from Mars. Grok means to understand, in an utterly complete and intuitive way. It's the Martian equivalent of to "get it", and the youth culture adopted this new word into the English language. The word is included in the American Heritage[http://www.bartleby.com/61/65/G0276500.html] and Merriam-Webster dictionaries. It is sometimes associated with hippies<ref>McCleary, John Bassett, ''The Hippie Dictionary: A Cultural Encyclopedia (And Phraseicon) of the 1960s and 1970s,''[httphttps://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN1580085474&id=vYvL4yFI2AQC&pg=RA1-PA223&lpg=RA1-PA223&ots=5fIdoQdlB8&dq=grok+in+fullness&sig=4G2aFDze9XW_xhLE_pvqOFWfBBk, p. 223]</ref> and computer programmers<ref>''The Hacker's Dictionary''[http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/tech/computers/TheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargon/chap28.html''The Hacker's Dictionary'']</ref>
In Heinlein's novel, a character asks another to explain the word: "You speak Martian... Do ''you'' grok 'grok?'" The other replies:
:A cult gives its members license to feel superior to the rest of the universe, and so does a cult movie: it confers hipness on those who grok what the mainstream audience can't.<ref>Edelstein, David (2004), "You're Entering a World of Lebowski, ''The New York Times,'' August 8, 2004, p. 21</ref>
:After all, therapists not only grok, but they have to grok fellow human beings who are anguished, defeated, and often at their wit's end, or, certainly, not at their best.<ref>Brady, Mark, ''The Wisdom of Listening,'' [httphttps://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0861713559&id=M5W4aHIFWVkC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=grok&sig=XmSdpyPN_-_pPCbQWZj0MUfViTI p. 94]</ref>
Grok is probably perhaps the only [[English ]] word that comes from the fictional language of Mars.
==References==
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[[Category:Novels]]