ruminate
/ˈruːmɪneɪt
/verb [no object]
1Think deeply about something: we sat ruminating on the nature of existence...
- His protagonists are too full of life and way too complicated to be the mere vehicles for ruminating on the contemporary dilemmas they face.
- As I enjoy the good fortune of greeting my 42nd new year's day, I've been ruminating on one sign of my good fortune: the safe, stable, well protected civil society we enjoy.
- Montrealers are ruminating on the uncharacteristic torpor that has struck since Christmas.
Synonyms
think about, contemplate, consider, give thought to, give consideration to, mull over, meditate on, muse on, ponder on/over, deliberate about/on, cogitate about/on, dwell on, brood on/over, agonize over, worry about, chew over, puzzle over;
turn over in one's mind
archaic pore on
2(Of a ruminant) chew the cud: goats ruminated nonchalantly around them...
- As the cattle paddle, ruminant and ruminating, sociably fussing with flank to flank, they occasionally raise prying muzzles to the horizon where, spectral in the mist and distance out at sea, boats swing to the wind.
- The cow needs a balance of physical ingredients in her rumen to get her to ruminate, to slow down the flow of food through the stomach and develop rumen wall muscle tone.
- We are into our third round of chicha, a black cow is ruminating at the barn door.
Synonyms
chew the cud
Derivatives
ruminative
/ adjective ...- Hollander's contribution was the slow movement of the Brahms D Minor Piano Concerto, in a ruminative and thoughtful performance.
- There's a solemn, ruminative atmosphere, and it's strange to see so many people and hear so little noise.
- In particular, the ruminative musings on anthropocentricity are virtually absent.
ruminatively
/ adverb ...- Hockney just bought this mirror and it has given him a new impetus to do self-portraits. ‘I usually only draw myself in down periods,’ he says, slowly, ruminatively.
- It's not surprising, I guess, that, by writing about it, I strip memory of its power to make me miserable, controlling the extent to which my imagination works ruminatively and speculatively.
- Walking along a back country road, a man comes across a farmer standing by a bar-gate, ruminatively watching the sunset.
ruminator
- The shattering implications of Bellesiles' argument for scholars, policy-makers, and ruminators upon the national character are clearly evident, but he leaves them unstated.
- Of all the writers making a lucrative living off the soul, Thomas Moore has generally been considered the most intelligent and reality-based ruminator on what ails the modern spirit.
- And even if ruminators can come up with a solution to their problems, because rumination makes their problems seem so large it saps their motivation to take even the littlest steps towards solutions.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from Latin ruminat- 'chewed over', from the verb ruminari.
Rhymes
- space myopia
- space needle
- space observatory
- space-occupying lesion
- space opera
- space-order
- space physics
- spaceplane
- space platform
- spaceport
- space probe
- space program
- space programme
- spacer
- space race
- space-reddened
- piskey
- piskun
- pisky
- pismire
- pismire hill
- pismire's hill
- Pismo clam
- pisolite
- pisolith