meditate
English
Etymology
First attested in 1560; borrowed from Latin meditātus, perfect active participle of meditor (“to think or reflect upon, consider, design, purpose, intend”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), morphologically as if frequentative of medeor (“to heal, to cure, to remedy”); in sense and in form near to Ancient Greek μελετάω (meletáō, “to care for, attend to, study, practise, etc.”). Participial usage up until Early Modern English.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈmɛ.dɪˌteɪt/
Audio (US): (file)
Verb
meditate (third-person singular simple present meditates, present participle meditating, simple past and past participle meditated)
- (intransitive) To contemplate; to keep the mind fixed upon something; to study.
- (intransitive) To sit or lie down and come to a deep rest while still remaining conscious.
- (transitive) To consider; to reflect on.
- 1761, John Toland, The Life Of Iohn[sic] Milton:
- […] yet I can by no means be persuaded that he could find leisure enough to write so many copies of it in his solitudes and sufferings, in the midst of treaties, in the hurry of removals, while he meditated his escape, and was strictly observ'd by his guards.
- 1956, William Golding, Pincher Martin:
- He lay and meditated the sluggishness of his bowels. This created pictures of chrome and porcelain and attendant circumstances.
Synonyms
- See also Thesaurus:ponder
Related terms
Translations
to contemplate
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to come to a deep rest while still remaining conscious
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
Adjective
meditate (not comparable)
- (obsolete, as a participle) Meditated.
Further reading
- “meditate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “meditate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
Anagrams
Italian
Etymology 1
Verb
meditate
- inflection of meditare:
- second-person plural present indicative
- second-person plural imperative
Etymology 2
Participle
meditate f pl
- feminine plural of meditato
Latin
Participle
meditāte
- vocative masculine singular of meditātus
References
- “meditate”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- meditate in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
Spanish
Verb
meditate