cogitate
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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cogitatesimple
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cogitatessimple
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have cogitatedperfect
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has cogitatedperfect
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am cogitatingprogressive
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are cogitatingprogressive
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is cogitatingprogressive
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have been cogitatingperfect progressive
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has been cogitatingperfect progressive
Past
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cogitatedsimple
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had cogitatedperfect
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was cogitatingprogressive
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were cogitatingprogressive
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had been cogitatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cogitate
1555–65; < Latin cōgitātus (past participle of cōgitāre ), equivalent to co- co- + agitātus; see agitate
Explanation
To cogitate is a fancy way of saying to think hard about. If you spend a lot of time figuring out exactly how your French teacher does her hair, you are cogitating in order to avoid conjugating. Cogitate can be used both transitively or intransitively, which means you can cogitate on something, like your history project or why your computer never seems to work the way you want it to. Or you can simply sit in your room and cogitate.
Vocabulary lists containing cogitate
Think Tank: Thought-Provoking Vocabulary
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A Tale of Two Cities
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
This week, Emily Bazelon and David Plotz are joined by Wesley Morris, critic at large for The New York Times and co-host of the Still Processing podcast, to cogitate on Conundrums 2023.
From Slate ● Dec. 28, 2023
It’s one thing to cogitate and empathize with national shame and collective culpability, but it’s another thing entirely to grow up with it, to have it tattooed on your DNA.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2023
"They will go over and over their thoughts, ruminate and cogitate sometimes for weeks and months," he says.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2022
Here Berggruen plans to construct what he half-jokingly describes as a “secular monastery,” a campus where scholars affiliated with the think tank that he founded, the Berggruen Institute, will live, work, cogitate.
From New York Times ● Apr. 6, 2022
Nor could he even cogitate upon the strong, true purpose and draw strength from that.
From "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers
But the narrator, thrilled and terrified by the prospect of committing to an entity who cogitates “a million times faster” than he can imagine, can’t help but pose “the indelicate question.”
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 15, 2019
She cogitates on questions like: What if she is making a choice she will always regret?
From New York Times ● May 10, 2018
You could say that such works represent a convergence of opposite kinds of consciousness: one that thinks rationalistically in the most abstract terms possible and one that cogitates by means of visual and poetic metaphors.
From New York Times ● Aug. 19, 2010
But when General Howe hears that Mary Philipse still loves Washington, is determined to go to him at Valley Forge, he cogitates a stratagem.
From Time Magazine Archive
He who often cogitates upon the death of others, little knows what sad Fate he may be preparing for himself.
From The Fables of Phædrus Literally translated into English prose with notes by Riley, Henry T. (Henry Thomas)
He went back to Down House, cogitated for a decade or more and came up with a second book, Descent of Man, in 1871.
From National Geographic ● Jun. 18, 2017
He has cogitated the fact that more than seven tenths of the earth's surface is submarine territory, on the average only three or four miles submerged but in some places far, far deeper.
From Time Magazine Archive
Philosopher-dramatist Pirandello cogitated, frowned, beamed at last upon his honorably quarrelsome friends, invited them to a garden party, suggested that they bring swords.
From Time Magazine Archive
Secretary of State Stimson, alive to the embarrassment of the situation, cogitated in his office.
From Time Magazine Archive
But the lieutenant just nodded, cogitated a bit, and then picked up the phone.
From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover
Attorney Joyce Vance was on Substack adding her expertise to the cogitating.
From Salon ● Apr. 1, 2023
And he began to work in earnest on the manuscript for “City of Quartz,” which brought together ideas he had been cogitating on for years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2022
All this cogitating steered his mind back to the problems he had after high school, when he was dealing with a sometimes crippling depression and anxiety.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 29, 2018
In his solo piano playing, at a halting mid-tempo, he often sounds like someone learning a step, holding and testing a pose, cogitating.
From New York Times ● Sep. 11, 2018
He had a cogitating look on his face.
From Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
