Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To turn a matter over and over in the mind.
- v. To chew cud.
- v. To reflect on over and over again.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To chew the cud, as a ruminant; practise rumination.
- To muse; meditate; think again and again; ponder: as, to ruminate on misfortunes.
- To chew again.
- To turn over in the mind; muse on; meditate over and over.
- In botany, appearing as if chewed: noting a structure of the endosperm (albumen) of a seed which gives a mottled appearance to its section, and which results from the infolding of a dark inner layer of the seed-coat into the lighter-colored matter of the endosperm, as in the nutmeg.
Wiktionary
- v. To chew cud. (Said of ruminants.) Involves regurgitating partially digested food from the rumen.
- v. To meditate or reflect.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To chew the cud; to chew again what has been slightly chewed and swallowed.
- v. To think again and again; to muse; to meditate; to ponder; to reflect.
- v. To chew over again.
- v. To meditate or ponder over; to muse on.
- adj. Having a hard albumen penetrated by irregular channels filled with softer matter, as the nutmeg and the seeds of the North American papaw.
WordNet 3.0
- v. chew the cuds
- v. reflect deeply on a subject
Etymologies
- Latin rūmināre, rūmināt-, from rūmen, rūmin-, throat.
Examples
“Again the word "rumination" suggestions an oddly somatic association: to ruminate is to turn over in mind and mouth (as in: chewing the cud).”
The Ordinary Sky: Wordsworth, Blanchot, and the Writing of Disaster
“So, once again I come back to my lj after a bit of a lapse - but I just need somewhere to ruminate (ruminate is a word, yes?”
“Their study, which included 1,300 men and women from ages 25 to 75, focused on a person's tendency to "ruminate," which they defined as getting stuck obsessing on negative emotions when trouble enters one's life.”
“If it was a shepherd, they would like to inquire "if he was not a _baa_ - keeper?" and the first would reply that he would have to "ruminate" on it before he made his answer; and the second would hope his reply would be "_spirited_; if not he had better be _punched_ up.”
“Monsieur l'administrateur,' something about their habits; stick some labels into the sand with their Latin names, tell us how they manage to feather their nests, whether they 'ruminate' over their food -- and we shall have added to our store of knowledge at the seaside!”
“I'll be copying your reply with paper and pencil so that I can "ruminate" on it further.”
“The man's stories may stick around in your head once you leave the soup kitchen, and you will ruminate on them, reviewing the details worriedly in circles.”
The Huffington Post: Bernie Glassman: The Buddhist Way Of Being Present To Suffering
“The Pandavas, the sons of King Pandu, won the battle but lost the war that shattered the world they knew only to ruminate the rest of their lives in the emptiness of what they had won.”
“Medication, though it can be an important part of treatment, only covers up the feelings; excessive talk therapy, though also potentially healing, at its worst simply gives us the chance to endlessly ruminate on our problems.”
The Huffington Post: New Harbinger: 5 Steps For Letting Depression Be Your Teacher
“We could ruminate for days on why she is so angry and judgmental.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ruminate’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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vocab 3
predilection, vagrant, stint, insinuate, incendiary, heedless, nonchalant, writhe, queasy, incandescest, hauteur, castigate and 24 more...
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sentient
think words
wise, witty, smart, brilliant, sentient, extrapolate, imagination, intelligence, polymath, contemplate, calculate, create and 2 more...
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Alternatives to EAT
Eat is a boring word.
chew, devour, gorge, feed, nibble, wolf, ruminate, scoff, munch, crunch, swallow
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jeffrey.t.whitney's list
sartorial, sabbatarian, sagacious, desiccate, ersatz, insouciant, atavistic, luddite, crwth, obdurate, stentorian, ruminate and 51 more...
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amox's list
macho, miasma, isle of langerhans, lipid, fractious, insipid, stentorian, slurpy, henbane, hag fish, hex sign, ranunculus and 9 more...
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SAT words
tergiversate, cymotrichous, vigilance, wince, consternation, cower, neutralize, euphony, cacophony, misanthrope, bibliophile, kleptomania and 81 more...
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dolphins gambolling
based on quote by Hesychius of Batos thornbush
who it is believed lived sometime between 700 and 900 AD
The heart that is freed from imaginings ends up by producing in itself hol...reflection, examen, nepsis, ruminate, contemplate, muller, soul-searching, reflect, flash, coruscate, redound, debuscope and 16 more...
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eaters (and eating)
carnivore, detritivore, saprophage, omnivore, herbivore, nectarivore, frugivore, oophagy, durophagy, feeding frenzy, trophallaxis, ruminate and 20 more...
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favorite words
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