ponder

From Middle English ponderen, from Old French ponderer (“to weigh, balance, ponder”) from Latin ponderare (“to weigh, ponder”), from pondus (“weight”), from pendere (“to weigh”); see pendent and pound.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɒn.də(ɹ)/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑn.dɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒndə(ɹ)

ponder (third-person singular simple present ponders, present participle pondering, simple past and past participle pondered)

1. To wonder, think of deeply.
2. To consider (something) carefully and thoroughly.

   Synonyms: chew over, mull over; see also Thesaurus:ponder

   I have spent days pondering the meaning of life.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 4:26:

     Ponder the path of thy feet.

3. (obsolete) To weigh.

ponder (plural ponders)

1. (colloquial) A period of deep thought.

   I lit my pipe and had a ponder about it, but reached no definite conclusion.

• “ponder”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “ponder”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• Penrod, podner, proned

From Latin ponderis, pondere, etc., inflected forms of pondus (“weight”).^[1]

ponder (plural ponders)

1. (glassblowing) A fourteenth-century unit of glass.

   Coordinate terms: shev, wyspe