verb
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to devise, invent, or contrive
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to think out in detail
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of excogitate
First recorded in 1520–30; from Latin excōgitātus, past participle of excōgitāre “to devise, invent, think out”; see ex- 1, cogitate
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:
I wouldn't put the question to you for the world, and expose you to the inconvenience of having to—a— excogitate an answer.
From Washington Square by James, Henry
The Apostle only commanded that each action and ceremony of God's worship be decently and orderly performed, but gives us no leave to excogitate or devise new ceremonies, which have not been instituted before.
From The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) by Gillespie, George
Bein’ hot I lay down in the lee of a bush to excogitate.
From Black Ivory by Pearson, Francis B.
But they err who excogitate from it those severe dogmas which express only dreams of the imagination and wishes of the religious spirit.
From History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology by Hurst, J. F. (John Fletcher)
It was long before little Isie got to sleep, what with attempting to realize the actual condition of Alec Forbes, and trying to excogitate the best means for his deliverance.
From Alec Forbes of Howglen by MacDonald, George
Last month, having excogitated 290 questions and created perhaps the most elaborate thinking test ever devised, they stunned a group of the nation's smartest high-school graduates with it.
From Time Magazine Archive
His defenders have here excogitated a most ingenious plea.
From The Color Line A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn by Smith, William Benjamin
However, theologians have excogitated a hypothetical case in which an action may be physically free without being meritorious.
From Grace, Actual and Habitual A Dogmatic Treatise by Preuss, Arthur
At Calvary poets have sung their sweetest strains, and artists seen their sublimest visions, and thinkers excogitated their noblest ideas.
From The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion by Stalker, James
Nature in a mirror is just nature, not nature thought out, excogitated, turned to human uses, interpreted in human words.
From The Critical Game by Macy, John Albert
It features essays by 22 scholars, all solemnly excogitating on such weighty matters as whether the horseshoes in his pictures are from dray horses or Thoroughbreds.
From Time Magazine Archive
Hence, too, it is that we hunt through the mental train, excogitating from the present or some other, and from similar or contrary or coadjacent.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 7 "Arundel, Thomas" to "Athens" by Various
It is a marvellous thing that they who engage in excogitating this kind of double-meaning literature about bimetallism, should suppose that the people can any longer be deluded with it.
From The Arena Volume 18, No. 93, August, 1897 by Various
An execrable Triumvirate—a scandalum magnatum to all public bodies: I suppose they and their adherents are now sitting in Pandemonium, excogitating their diabolical machinations against us.
From The Politician Out-Witted by Moses, Montrose Jonas
He set about excogitating an alphabet; but actually forgot to give names to his letters, which afterwards baffled him before literary men.
From Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 by Disraeli, Isaac
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.
