cogitate - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Verb
cogitate (third-person singular simple present cogitates, present participle cogitating, simple past and past participle cogitated)
- (intransitive) To meditate, to ponder, to think deeply.
- ✤ He that calleth a thing into his mind, whether by impression or recordation, cogitateth and considereth, and he that employeth the faculty of his fancy also cogitateth.1
- ✤ Think, ladies! Cogitate! Sharpen up the edges of your wit.2
- ✤ As a theoretical physicist, Dirac didn’t need a lab to do his work; all he needed was a pencil, because his most finely calibrated instrument was his mind’s eye. When he was young, a teacher told him that she felt he was cogitating not in words but in “another medium of forms and figures.” He once described his own thoughts as essentially “geometrical.”3
- (transitive) To consider, to devise.
Etymology
First attested in 1570; borrowed from Latin cōgitātus, perfect passive participle of cōgitō (“to think”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kōʹjĭtāt, IPA: /ˈkəʊdʒɪteɪt/, /ˈkɒdʒɪteɪt/
- Audio (Southern England): 🔊
- (General American) IPA: /ˈkoʊd͡ʒɪteɪt/, /ˈkɑd͡ʒɪteɪt/
- Rhymes: -eɪt
Printed 2026-09-15.
(echo:: @ ⌗)
Footnotes
-
1605, Francis Bacon, “”, in The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the Proficience and Aduancement of Learning, Diuine and Humane, London: […] [Thomas Purfoot and Thomas Creede] for Henrie Tomes, […], →OCLC: ↩
-
1953, Robert Wright, George Forrest, Kismet: ↩
-
2015, Steve Silberman, chapter 1, in Megan Newman, editor, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, New York: Avery, →ISBN, page 37: ↩