Grok To grok (TKPWROBG) something is to have gained a fundamentally intuitive understanding at the core level of your being. It's from Robert A. Heinlein's 1961 novel, Stranger in a Strange Land. There's a lot more nuance to the word grok, of course, both in the the novel and how its use and meaning has evolved over time. As the Hackers Dictionary puts it:
When you claim to "grok" some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you "know" Lisp is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary – but to say you "grok" Lisp is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming. For some, groking steno is a sudden flash of lightbulb moment; for others, it's an evolution over time. For most, it seems it's a series of lightbulb moments contributing to an ever-evolving paradigm shift leading to groking steno. It's pretty exhilarating 
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