ratiocination
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
- ratiocinative adjective
Etymology
Origin of ratiocination
1520–30; < Latin ratiōcinātiōn- (stem of ratiōcinātiō ), equivalent to ratiōcināt ( us ) ( ratiocinate ) + -iōn- -ion
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.
This is a genre, after all, invented by Edgar Allan Poe, for whom the boundaries between his “tales of terror” and his “tales of ratiocination” were porous.
From Washington Post
In the midst of all the postmortem ratiocination, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that climbing mountains will never be a safe, predictable, rule-bound enterprise.
From Literature
Mr. Sharpe addressed him directly, asking if the boy were capable yet of ratiocination, or was become dumb.
From Literature
Those cases — and Sherlock Holmes’s ratiocinations — are fated to remain forever untold, mentioned in Dr. Watson’s chronicles but never explained beyond these baroque references, with their nearly comic grotesqueries.
From New York Times
After vain and vexatious jugglings with the dry tissues of unchastened ratiocination, simplicity and even ignorance brought their solace.
From Project Gutenberg
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.
