Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To consider or think (something) out carefully and thoroughly.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To think out; contrive; devise.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb rare To cogitate.
- transitive verb To think out; to find out or discover by thinking; to devise; to contrive.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
think over somethingcarefully ; toconsider fully ;cogitate . - verb To come to a
conclusion throughreason orcareful thought .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb reflect deeply on a subject
- verb come up with (an idea, plan, explanation, theory, or principle) after a mental effort
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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John Forrest Dillon, a man of high intelligence, explained, in the preface to the fourth edition of his treatise on local government: No writer on our jurisprudence is authorized to speak oracularly, to excogitate a system, or to give to his views any authoritative sanction.
A History of American Law Lawrence M. Friedman 1985
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John Forrest Dillon, a man of high intelligence, explained, in the preface to the fourth edition of his treatise on local government: No writer on our jurisprudence is authorized to speak oracularly, to excogitate a system, or to give to his views any authoritative sanction.
A History of American Law Lawrence M. Friedman 1985
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John Forrest Dillon, a man of high intelligence, explained, in the preface to the fourth edition of his treatise on local government: No writer on our jurisprudence is authorized to speak oracularly, to excogitate a system, or to give to his views any authoritative sanction.
A History of American Law Lawrence M. Friedman 1985
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I suppose I should have simply agreed with Ted's 5 points, moved on and not chosen TN as the forum to excogitate on what appears to be a success for Blizzard.
The Golden 1M: Please Welcome the Next Candidate, World of Warcraft 2004
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Twice or thrice he rose from his chair, paced the room with a determined brow, and sat down again with vigorous clutch of the pen; still he failed to excogitate a single sentence that would serve his purpose.
New Grub Street 2003
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It's no criticism of your work product, and no one can excogitate the perfect bill.
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On the other hand, while philosophers have not ceased their effort to excogitate what matter must be and cosmologies have still been produced, more interestingly perhaps, because cosmology has not been the center of philo - sophical interest, theories of matter have been derived from, or even only implied by, disciplines that were — epistemology, semantics, theories of action.
Dictionary of the History of Ideas HAROLD J. JOHNSON 1968
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In fact, it must require a considerable effort to excogitate novel labor-saving devices.
By Water to the Columbian Exposition Johanna S. Wisthaler
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It is said that at an early age he disliked the Logic of Aristotle, and began to excogitate his system of
English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Designed as a Manual of Instruction Henry Coppee
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Not here, pray, I beseech you; but, if I must, suffer me to excogitate these very things on the ground.
Clouds 446? BC-385? BC Aristophanes
qms commented on the word excogitate
Though you may prefer to meditate
Or idly to ponder and speculate,
Should thinking involve
Some problem to solve
You'd better prepare to excogitate.
September 29, 2016