ratiocination

[rash-ee-os-uh-ney-shuhn, -oh-suh-, rat-ee-]

noun

1. the process of logical reasoning.

Other Word Forms

• ratiocinative adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of ratiocination¹

1520–30; < Latin ratiōcinātiōn- (stem of ratiōcinātiō ), equivalent to ratiōcināt ( us ) ( ratiocinate ) + -iōn- -ion

Example Sentences

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.

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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.

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Mr. Sharpe addressed him directly, asking if the boy were capable yet of ratiocination, or was become dumb.

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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.

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After vain and vexatious jugglings with the dry tissues of unchastened ratiocination, simplicity and even ignorance brought their solace.

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