First attested in 1560;borrowed fromLatinmeditātus,perfectactiveparticiple ofmeditor(“to think or reflect upon, consider, design, purpose, intend”) (see-ate(verb-forming suffix) and-ate(adjective-forming suffix)),morphologically as iffrequentative ofmedeor(“to heal, to cure, to remedy”); in sense and in form near toAncient Greekμελετάω(meletáō,“to care for, attend to, study, practise, etc.”). Participial usage up untilEarly Modern English.
meditate (third-person singular simple presentmeditates,present participlemeditating,simple past and past participlemeditated)
- (intransitive) Tocontemplate; to keep the mind fixed upon something; to study.
- (intransitive) To sit or lie down and come to a deep rest while still remaining conscious.
- (transitive) To consider; to reflect on.
1761, John Toland,The Life Of Iohn[sic] Milton:[…] yet I can by no means be persuaded that he could find leisure enough to write so many copies of it in his solitudes and sufferings, in the midst of treaties, in the hurry of removals, while hemeditated his escape, and was strictly observ'd by his guards.
1956, William Golding,Pincher Martin:He lay andmeditated the sluggishness of his bowels. This created pictures of chrome and porcelain and attendant circumstances.
to come to a deep rest while still remaining conscious
Translations to be checked
meditate (notcomparable)
- (obsolete, as a participle)Meditated.
- “meditate”, inWebster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.:G. & C. Merriam,1913,→OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney,Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “meditate”, inThe Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.:The Century Co.,→OCLC.
meditate
- inflection ofmeditare:
- second-personpluralpresentindicative
- second-personpluralimperative
meditate f pl
- feminineplural ofmeditato
meditāte
- vocativemasculinesingular ofmeditātus
- “meditate”, inCharlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879)A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- meditate inGaffiot, Félix (1934)Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
meditate
- second-personsingular voseoimperative ofmeditar combined withte
