deliberate
adjective /dɪˈlɪb(ə)rət 
/
/1Done consciously and intentionally: a deliberate attempt to provoke conflict...
- We have reason to believe at this point in time with the evidence through the course of the investigation this was premeditated, deliberate, intentional.
- He said there is no deliberate attempt to provoke feelings of isolation, but the looped video of a train constantly leaving the viewer stranded is a touch eerie.
- And those injuries have been inflicted with deliberate and premeditated intent.
Synonyms
intentional, calculated, conscious, done on purpose, intended, planned, meant, considered, studied, knowing, wilful, wanton, purposeful, purposive, premeditated, pre-planned, thought out in advance, prearranged, preconceived, predetermined;
aforethought;
voluntary, volitional
Law, dated prepense
2Careful and unhurried: a conscientious and deliberate worker...
- We want to be very, very careful, and I have every confidence in my husband, in his administration, that they will be very careful and very deliberate over this.
- He is very deliberate, very careful, has a wonderful sense of humor.
- Recruiting teachers has become a careful and deliberate process because the reputation of the institution depends on them.
Synonyms
careful, cautious, unhurried, measured, regular, even, steady;
leisurely;
laborious, ponderous
methodical, systematic, careful, painstaking, meticulous, thorough
2.1Fully considered; not impulsive: a deliberate decision...
- A deliberate decision - decided I would vote when it was voluntary.
- It was this committee that took the deliberate decision that the coronation of Charles II would be conducted as if the previous ten years had not happened.
- Only deliberate effort enables one fully to grasp the implications of such a position.
verb /dɪˈlɪbəreɪt / [no object]
/ [no object]1Engage in long and careful consideration: she deliberated over the menu...
- For the rest of the year, every activity can be weighed up and deliberated over according to the level of risk that it carries, and what could be gained by doing it.
- Conferees deliberated over issues like the moral questions raised by new brain scanning techniques, which some believe will lead to the creation of truly effective lie detectors.
- I deliberated over it for months and my husband and I discussed it at length before I decided to go on tour.
1.1 [with object] Consider (a question) carefully: jurors deliberated the fate of those charged [with clause]: they deliberated what they should do with him...
- Scientists are still deliberating this question.
- As I ran back and forth, hitting the balls he sent me, I deliberated the question - could I ethically have a different attitude toward Ben, just because he was with the girl I loved?
- In 1933, the Protestant Church deliberated the question of whether Christians converted from Judaism should still be allowed to belong to the Church.
Synonyms
think about, think over, ponder, consider, contemplate, reflect on, muse on, meditate on, ruminate on, mull over, chew over, turn over in one's mind, give thought to, cogitate about;
brood over, dwell on;
put on one's thinking cap, be in a brown study;
discuss, debate, weigh up;
North American think on
archaic pore on
rare excogitate, cerebrate
Derivatives
deliberateness
/ noun ...- You can see the deliberateness with which the scholar seeks his material after he gets going, but a poet never lives in that way at all.
- Not only, then, does materialist evolutionary theory fail to deliver knowledge, truth, deliberateness and agency, but they are of little or no evolutionary value.
- It is has a sense of heightened unreality, a deliberateness that gives the characters depth despite occasionally too-smooth dialogue.
deliberator
- Remember them - our lawmakers, policy deliberators, budget writers?
- Each deliberator will be paid $150 for the day's work of citizenship.
- Well, Ray was more, as the book says, the deliberator.
Origin
Late Middle English (as an adjective): from Latin deliberatus, 'considered carefully', past participle of deliberare, from de- 'down' + librare 'weigh' (from libra 'scales').
The sense of deliberate ‘done intentionally’ is older than the closely related, but slightly differently pronounced, deliberate ‘to engage in careful consideration’. The first is medieval, the second from the mid 16th century. Both go back to a Latin word formed from libra ‘scales’, which captured the idea of weighing something up before coming to a conclusion. In the early 18th century the essayist Joseph Addison wrote that ‘When love once pleads admission to our hearts…The woman that deliberates is lost’. This is the forerunner of the modern proverb he who hesitates is lost, which is not recorded until more than 150 years later.