And ratiocination is a favorite word used to describe him: Holmes’s famous ratiocination is now at the service of a man of action.— David Denby, The New Yorker, 4 January 2010, One of the characters in the Ritchie film remarks that there is a fragility beneath all Holmes's logic and ratiocination, and it's true. — Jonathan Raban, theStranger.com, 17 June 2017. Scott, The New York Times, 25 December 2009. That you stand pensive, as half malcontent?— Henry VI, Part III, Act IV, Scene I, My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now. Cerebration (“mental activity,” “thought”) and the verb that derived from it a few years later, cerebrate (“to use the mind,” “to think”) have the technical, medical, and psychological overtones that come from Latin-derived vocabulary in a research field.

Intuition The ability to acquire knowledge and make judgments almost instantaneously without conscious thought. If we simply want to describe the person directly, we can say: She’s funny. Pensive comes from the French verb penser, meaning “to think.” The literal meaning of pensive, therefore, is “thoughtful,” but it came to English with a downcast attitude. Intellection means “the act of the intellect” or “exercise of the intellect,” a synonym of thought and reasoning. When we ponder, we think carefully about something. tense. One impediment to greater usage of cerebration is its similarity to celebration, which can make it easily misunderstood. It does not, as the Rubik’s Cube does, reward higher-level intellection.— Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 12 May 2017. And like most pairs of words with one each from these particular family groups, the one with roots in Old English is the everyday, household word (“knowledgeable”) while the one with Latin roots is more fancy and hifalutin (“chiefly guided by the intellect rather than emotion”). dreadful. But the most Borgesian quality in Nolan's work is his cool detachment from the world he describes. malarkey Though it may not share etymological roots with the Muses, the verb muse does have a relative in English that connects in a more literal way with their shared past: muzzle. Here it’s used in the King James Bible: Hitherto is the end of the matter. This word often shows that you think the new ideas are wrong, believing that one rule or principle is more important than any other and must never be broken, formal failing to consider history properly when thinking or talking about something, considering that people are more important than anything else in the world, if something is at the back of your mind, you are thinking about it or it is affecting how you behave, perhaps without your realizing it, not thinking about something now, but knowing that it exists or is true, ideas, feelings, or issues that are bound up with each other are connected very closely, so that it is difficult to think of them separately, politics based on or relating to the behaviour of individuals rather than institutions, involving one idea that is clearly right and another that is clearly wrong, so that it is not difficult for you to make a moral decision, a blind emotion or belief is so strong that you do not question it in any way, even if it is unreasonable, a circular argument or theory does not mean anything because it consists of a series of causes and effects that lead you back to the original cause, ideas or systems that are compatible can exist together, competing arguments, claims, theories etc cannot all be true or cannot all be dealt with in an equal way, in a way that relates to principles or concepts, relating to or based on the moral theories and principles of Confucius, not willing to accept much change, especially in the traditional values of society, a contagious feeling or idea spreads quickly from one person or place to another, contradictory statements, information, ideas, or beliefs disagree with each other and cannot both or all be true, according to people whose job is to give their opinion of things such as new books, plays, or films, by people whose job is to give their opinion of things such as new books, plays, or films, in relation to the cultural ideas and behaviour of one or more groups, countries, or societies, believed or practised by many people at the present time, something that is deep involves very serious thoughts, ideas, or feelings, a deep-rooted feeling, belief, idea etc is strong and you have had it for so long that it is difficult to change, a defensible belief or idea is one that you can support well against criticism, formal using or believing in the idea that everything is caused by another event or action and so you are not free to choose what you do, based on someone’s judgment of a particular situation rather than on a set of rules, relating to the idea that life is or can be extremely bad, an elegant theory or solution is impressive because it is simple and effective, formal relating to or based on the study of knowledge, very formal relating to or based on experience, a fiendish plan or idea is very clever but cruel, a fixed idea or opinion does not change although it may be wrong, informal a half-baked idea or plan is not practical because it has not been thought about carefully, thinking about the whole of something, and not just dealing with particular aspects, formal reasoning from particular facts or ideas to a general rule or law, an ingrained attitude, belief, or habit has existed for a long time and cannot easily be changed, your innermost thoughts and feelings are the ones that are most personal and private, if someone is in your thoughts, you think about them a lot. Join Macmillan Dictionary on Twitter and Facebook for daily word facts, quizzes and language news. Other words derived from cogitare have fallen out of active use in English, but they show that this fancy way of saying “to think” was a rich source of vocabulary. You kind of feel it’s a little bit hard to ideate and to be creative when you have such strong guidelines and direction.”— Other common words that derive from pondus have to do with things that are hanging, heavy, or a unit of weight itself: Because we cannot see thoughts, the words we use to describe the process of thinking are usually figurative, like the difference in the uses of active in “running to keep active” and “an active imagination.” We often “turn over” an idea. I attempt to be noetic, but can often come off as verbose and obtuse, if not borderline lugubrious. Cogitate became the Latin-based verb synonym for the Old English-derived think, and cogitation the synonym for the noun thought.

Carl Jung defined it as "perception via the unconscious." awful. This expression is often used for telling someone who is unhappy that you are thinking about them, relating to or based on the ideas of interpretivism, thinking about something only as a general idea without referring to real situations or practical experience, British looking at all aspects of an issue, tending to examine your own feelings, thoughts, or ideas rather than communicating with other people, understanding words or ideas only in a basic and obvious way, and not their hidden or more unusual meanings, treating or describing human behaviour and natural processes as if they are machines, formal relating to the belief that society needs to be completely changed, a mistaken belief, idea, opinion etc is not correct, relating to, or expressing, conservative views of the type that existed before the liberal times of the 1960s and 1970s, used about beliefs, attitudes, or periods in history, believing and practising the basic or original ideas of a political, economic, or other theory, if someone’s opinions or ideas are out in left field, they are very unusual, a preconceived idea or opinion is formed before you have a lot of information, experience, or evidence and is therefore probably wrong, used about thoughts or feelings that you do not express, radical opinions are based on the belief that important political or social changes are necessary, formal generally believed to be true or correct, treating something in a way that makes it seem much simpler than it really is, opinions, ideas, or judgments that are skewed have been affected by something, making them strange or unfair, completely following the rules of a particular belief, relating to thoughts or feelings that you have but do not think about, or do not realize you have, used about a person’s feelings and thoughts that no one else can know directly or completely, based on a strict way of understanding or explaining a law or rule, according to a strict way of understanding the meaning of a rule or a set of facts, in a way that shows you are thinking seriously about something, a threadbare idea or excuse has been used a lot and is no longer effective, if an idea, statement, or situation is uncontroversial, the majority of people accept that it is right, unshaken feelings or beliefs remain strong despite disappointments, utilitarian attitudes or principles are based on the belief that something is morally right if it helps a majority of people, involving extremely strong feelings or beliefs, American warmed-over ideas or arguments are not new or original, a weak argument or idea is one that you can easily criticize or prove to be wrong, while thinking about someone or something.
'All Intensive Purposes' or 'All Intents and Purposes'? How to use a word that (literally) drives some pe... Name that government! easygoing 20, 1980. Or something like that. ugly. awestruck. The greater emotional distance of many Latin-derived words in English makes intellection a perfect term for dispassionate analysis, and has been used in theological writing and literary criticism for centuries: The severall opinions of philosophers concerning the manner how intellection is wrought or produced.— Thomas Jackson, A treatise containing the originall of vnbeliefe, misbeliefe, or misperswasions concerning the veritie, vnitie, and attributes of the Deitie, 1625, But time and again in her first two essay collections, Against Interpretation and Styles of Radical Will, she argued for a more sensuous, less intellectual approach to art. bashful. heavy. Cogitate means “to think carefully and seriously about something,” and it comes from the Latin cogitare (“to think”), itself formed from the combination of ¬co- meaning “together” and agitare meaning “to drive” or “to agitate”—the root of agitate in English and, in this case, another figurative use of language, since it could also mean “to turn over in the mind” in Latin. Uncle Peter had first declared that the thought of food sickened him. Another word for thought. It received an unusual note at its definition in our Unabridged edition of 1934: To reason discursively or according to a logical process ; —now usually humorous.

The verb ratiocinate is also sometimes seen: But we're here to see Downey ratiocinate his way in and around the movie, and Ritchie indulges him and us.— Ty Burr, The Boston Globe, 25 December 2009. There are different ways we can use this word to describe a person.