cogitate
Americanverb (used without object)
-
cogitates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
cogitated,
past participle, past
-
cogitating
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
cogitates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
cogitated,
past participle, past
-
cogitating
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
cogitatesimple
-
cogitatessimple
-
have cogitatedperfect
-
has cogitatedperfect
-
am cogitatingprogressive
-
are cogitatingprogressive
-
is cogitatingprogressive
-
have been cogitatingperfect progressive
-
has been cogitatingperfect progressive
Past
-
cogitatedsimple
-
had cogitatedperfect
-
was cogitatingprogressive
-
were cogitatingprogressive
-
had been cogitatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cogitate
1555–65; < Latin cōgitātus (past participle of cōgitāre ), equivalent to co- co- + agitātus; see agitate
Explanation
To cogitate is a fancy way of saying to think hard about. If you spend a lot of time figuring out exactly how your French teacher does her hair, you are cogitating in order to avoid conjugating. Cogitate can be used both transitively or intransitively, which means you can cogitate on something, like your history project or why your computer never seems to work the way you want it to. Or you can simply sit in your room and cogitate.
Vocabulary lists containing cogitate
Think Tank: Thought-Provoking Vocabulary
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
A Tale of Two Cities
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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:
This week, Emily Bazelon and David Plotz are joined by Wesley Morris, critic at large for The New York Times and co-host of the Still Processing podcast, to cogitate on Conundrums 2023.
From Slate ● Dec. 28, 2023
It’s one thing to cogitate and empathize with national shame and collective culpability, but it’s another thing entirely to grow up with it, to have it tattooed on your DNA.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2023
"They will go over and over their thoughts, ruminate and cogitate sometimes for weeks and months," he says.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2022
Here Berggruen plans to construct what he half-jokingly describes as a “secular monastery,” a campus where scholars affiliated with the think tank that he founded, the Berggruen Institute, will live, work, cogitate.
From New York Times ● Apr. 6, 2022
He had tried to cogitate and to discipline himself to study.
From "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers
But the narrator, thrilled and terrified by the prospect of committing to an entity who cogitates “a million times faster” than he can imagine, can’t help but pose “the indelicate question.”
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 15, 2019
She cogitates on questions like: What if she is making a choice she will always regret?
From New York Times ● May 10, 2018
You could say that such works represent a convergence of opposite kinds of consciousness: one that thinks rationalistically in the most abstract terms possible and one that cogitates by means of visual and poetic metaphors.
From New York Times ● Aug. 19, 2010
Mr. Steuer approaches the jury box and in a suave, confidential manner breathes an inaudible question, stands stiff waiting for an answer, relaxes when it comes, cogitates gently, whispers another query.
From Time Magazine Archive
The apodeictical proposition cogitates the assertorical as determined by these very laws of the understanding, consequently as affirming a priori, and in this manner it expresses logical necessity.
From The Critique of Pure Reason by John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
He went back to Down House, cogitated for a decade or more and came up with a second book, Descent of Man, in 1871.
From National Geographic ● Jun. 18, 2017
Philosopher-dramatist Pirandello cogitated, frowned, beamed at last upon his honorably quarrelsome friends, invited them to a garden party, suggested that they bring swords.
From Time Magazine Archive
Arthur William Bell, Bailiff of Guernsey, cogitated on the bench.
From Time Magazine Archive
Though he had formally stood for Candidate Willis, the Hooverites cogitated the gesture of offering Keynoter Fess the proxy of one of their own men.
From Time Magazine Archive
But the lieutenant just nodded, cogitated a bit, and then picked up the phone.
From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover
Attorney Joyce Vance was on Substack adding her expertise to the cogitating.
From Salon ● Apr. 1, 2023
And he began to work in earnest on the manuscript for “City of Quartz,” which brought together ideas he had been cogitating on for years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2022
All this cogitating steered his mind back to the problems he had after high school, when he was dealing with a sometimes crippling depression and anxiety.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 29, 2018
And would death have been any less terrifying if I’d understood that it wasn’t an endless nothing but consisted instead of memory cogitating for eons on itself?
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 2, 2016
He had a cogitating look on his face.
From Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles
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.
