Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Thoughtful consideration; meditation.
  • noun A serious thought; a carefully considered reflection.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In pre-Kantian philosophy, especially in Descartes, Spinoza, and the Wolfians, consciousness, especially thoughts.
  • noun The act of cogitating or thinking; earnest reflection; meditation; contemplation.
  • noun Hence That which is thought out; a plan; a scheme.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of thinking; thought; meditation; contemplation.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The process of cogitating; thought, deliberation or meditation
  • noun countable A carefully considered thought

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun attentive consideration and meditation
  • noun a carefully considered thought about something

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin cogitatio

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Examples

  • It’s clear that she, like so many others, feels that blacks are lacking something in cogitation.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » 1. Science, Faith, and Not Ruling Out Possibilities 2010

  • Reply Obj. 1: According to Richard of St. Victor "cogitation" would seem to regard the consideration of the many things from which a person intends to gather one simple truth.

    Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province Aquinas Thomas

  • Oh, there is material in plenty for the cogitation of any philosopher on a windjammer in mutiny in this Year of our Lord 1913.

    CHAPTER XLVIII 2010

  • As Dick Forrest had taught them, the minutes spent with him were not minutes of cogitation.

    CHAPTER IV 2010

  • The “leaders,” or main articles, tend to “urge” politicians to solve complex problems, as if the key to, say, reconstituting the global banking system were but a simple act of cogitation away.

    The Newsweekly’s Last Stand 2009

  • "Fifteen years," he said, and returned to his tremendous cogitation.

    CHAPTER 22 2010

  • The “leaders,” or main articles, tend to “urge” politicians to solve complex problems, as if the key to, say, reconstituting the global banking system were but a simple act of cogitation away.

    The Newsweekly’s Last Stand 2009

  • Peter Winn lay back comfortably in a library chair, with closed eyes, deep in the cogitation of a scheme of campaign destined in the near future to make a certain coterie of hostile financiers sit up.

    Winged Blackmail 2010

  • The garish colors, the bawling kids, the irritating and distracting music and the inedible snacks make it no place for conversation or cogitation.

    Matthew Yglesias » McDonald’s Or Starbucks 2009

  • And when he chose to speak a harsh thought, it was ten-fold harsher than ordinarily, because it seemed to proceed out of such profundity of cogitation, because it was as prodigiously deliberate in its incubation as it was in its enunciation.

    CHAPTER XII 2010

Comments

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  • "By this time my wits were coming back to me, and I could think again. It took me about an hour to figure the thing out, and I did not hurry, for, unless the murderer came back, I had till about six o'clock in the morning for my cogitations."

    - John Buchan, 'The Thirty-Nine Steps'.

    August 28, 2009