Make Your Point > Archived Issues > COGITATE
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pronounce
COGITATE:
Say it "KODGE ih tate."
To hear it, click here.
connect this word to others:
Our word cogitate strikes me as one of those funny, overly scholarly words that you'd expect to hear from Brain in Pinky and the Brain. "Pinky, are you cogitating like I'm cogitating?"
So along with the words ponder and cogitate, we've got contemplate, deliberate, meditate, and so on--so many choices for expressing the act of thinking. Can you recall one that suggests chewing on an idea over and over? It's r____ate.
(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)
definition:
Our word "cogitate" comes from a Latin one, cogitare, that means the same thing: "to think about, to consider, to turn over in your mind."
If you pick that Latin word apart (into co and agitare), you'll see that it literally means "to keep moving together, or to keep driving together," as if someone is stirring thoughts around in their mind over and over. (That explains why "cogitate" looks so much like "agitate"--think of the agitator in a washing machine, helping the clothes move around and around.)
In other words, to cogitate, or to cogitate on or about something, is to think about something, usually carefully, seriously, and/or for a long time.
grammatical bits:
Part of speech:
Verb, the intransitive kind: "he cogitated for a moment," "she cogitated on the question."
Other forms:
The common ones are "cogitated," "cogitating," and "cogitation."
("Cogitation" is the process. If you need a noun for the ability, you can use the rare "cogitativity." But Lord almighty, what an ugly noun! Instead, consider saying "the power of thought" or "the power of thinking.")
Things you can think about are "cogitable" and have "cogitability."
And living beings who can think are "cogitators."
The adjective and adverb are rare: "cogitative" and "cogitatively."
how to use it:
Let's be real: most of the time, you don't need the word "cogitate." All you need is a simple, clear, common word like "think," "consider," or "reflect."
But when you need an especially formal, serious, scholarly, philosophical, old-fashioned word instead, then pick "cogitate." In my opinion, the only good reasons to do this are to be sarcastic, or to make a joke: to be pseudo-intellectual in a silly way, like in this comic strip. And this one. And this one, too.
Still, if you must, talk about people cogitating, or people cogitating on or over or about some issue, question, concern, analysis, diagnosis, etc. Below, you'll see an example from an old-timey novel of a narrator using the word "cogitate" in earnest. And below that, you'll see two modern examples of writers using the word with a touch of sarcasm.
examples:
"In another corner of the room the haberdasher's wife, with whom Mrs. Peter was not on speaking terms, was cogitating thoughtfully on what the will might and might not contain."
— Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow, John Marsh's Millions, 1910
"Universities need to realize that industry is not a rapacious octopus, sucking up everything it can get its tentacles on and suffocating the scientific independence of academic researchers... Academics must realize that just sending off a progress report after cogitating in the laboratory is not useful for a company."
— Hans Zappe, Nature, 25 September 2013
"Clearly, we are in the abstract realm where artists cogitate and compose. Stylized renderings...of slowly opening flowers, swaying grass and birds on the wing are projected onto a screen."
— Ben Brantley, New York Times, 3 October 2018
has this page helped you understand "cogitate"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "cogitate" without saying "brainstorm" or "meditate."
try it out:
According to the New York Times, the baseball player R. A. Dickey spends time thinking about something he calls "the regret factor in baseball." Dickey explains it like this:
"Not so much about regret but how to handle regret, those are two very different things completely... I’ve always tried to cogitate over what that really means and how to do it better."
So, he thinks about not just the emotion, or how to deal with the emotion, but how to better think about dealing with the emotion? I think I get it. Almost. But I'd need to cogitate on it. All I know for certain is that I love this baseball player for keeping a thesaurus in his locker.
With this example in mind, talk about another fuzzy or complex idea, comment, theory, book, or movie that makes you say, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, "Well, I've got to cogitate on this. I'm not sure I get it."
before you review, play:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
Our game this month is "Faces & Feelings."
If the word you're studying were a facial expression, what would it look like? Maybe one of the seven universal facial expressions, the ones identified by the psychologist Paul Ekman.
In each issue, take a handful of words and assign each to an emotion it inspires. I'll list my answers at the bottom of each issue. Yours might be different from mine, which is okay--words, and emotions, are complex and personal! The goal here is just to interact with our words, to tie them more securely into memory by connecting them to emotion and to the face.
Try this set today. Match each face on the left to a term on the right:
idyllic
imminent
incite
incriminate
indigence
infra dig
insolent
review this word:
A. WISH.
B. ZONE OUT.
C. EXPERIMENT.
2. He often says _____ and _____. I don't think he spends his free time, you know, um, cogitating.
A. "I always win" .. "I win everything"
B. "It's the best" .. "It was the most beautiful thing ever"
C. "Nobody ever knew that" .. "Nobody ever heard of that before"
a final word:
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From my blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.
Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
Our word cogitate strikes me as one of those funny, overly scholarly words that you'd expect to hear from Brain in Pinky and the Brain. "Pinky, are you cogitating like I'm cogitating?"
Our word "cogitate" comes from a Latin one, cogitare, that means the same thing: "to think about, to consider, to turn over in your mind."
Part of speech:
Let's be real: most of the time, you don't need the word "cogitate." All you need is a simple, clear, common word like "think," "consider," or "reflect."
"In another corner of the room the haberdasher's wife, with whom Mrs. Peter was not on speaking terms, was cogitating thoughtfully on what the will might and might not contain."
Explain the meaning of "cogitate" without saying "brainstorm" or "meditate."
According to the New York Times, the baseball player R. A. Dickey spends time thinking about something he calls "the regret factor in baseball." Dickey explains it like this:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
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