Include, comprehend, embrace, involve, imply, subsume are comparable when meaning basically to contain something within as a part or portion of a whole.
Include suggests that the thing included forms a constituent, component, or subordinate part.
Comprehend suggests that within the scope or range of the whole under consideration (as the content of a term, a concept, a conception, or a view) the thing comprehended is held or enclosed even though it may or may not be clearly distinguished or actually distinguishable.
Embrace (see also ADOPT ) suggests a reaching out to gather the thing embraced within the whole (as the content of a mind or of a course of study or a construction or interpretation of a law).
Involve suggests inclusion by virtue of the nature of the whole, whether by being its natural or inevitable consequence or one of its antecedent conditions or one of the parts or elements which comprise it by necessity or definition.
Imply is very close to involve in meaning but stresses a thing’s inclusion not, as involve does, by the nature or constitution of the whole but as something which can be inferred because hinted at (see also SUGGEST 1 ) or because normally or customarily part of its content especially by definition or because invariably associated with the thing under consideration as its cause or its effect or as its maker or its product. For this reason imply may, in comparison with involve, suggest a degree of uncertainty; thus, silence is often said to imply consent, but it would be rash to say that it involves consent.
Subsume, a technical term in logic, philosophy, and the classificatory sciences, implies inclusion within a class or category (as an individual in a species or a species in a genus) or a being comprehended by a general principle or proposition <absolute generic unity would obtain if there were one summum genus under which all things without exception could be eventually subsumed —James >