reasoning

American  

[ree-zuh-ning, reez-ning] / ˈri zə nɪŋ, ˈriz nɪŋ /

noun

1. the act or process of a person who reasons.

2. the process of forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences from facts or premises.

3. the reasons, arguments, proofs, etc., resulting from this process.

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reasoning British  

/ ˈriːzənɪŋ /

noun

1. the act or process of drawing conclusions from facts, evidence, etc

2. the arguments, proofs, etc, so adduced

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Other Word Forms

• half-reasoning adjective
• nonreasoning adjective
• reasoningly adverb

Etymology

Origin of reasoning

First recorded in 1325–75, reasoning is from the Middle English word resoninge. See reason, -ing ²

Explanation

Reasoning is a logical, thoughtful way of thinking. When your teacher explains the reasoning behind his classroom rules, he makes it clear exactly why and how he came up with them. Voters often want to understand the reasoning behind certain laws, and toddlers almost always want to know the reasoning behind rules about bedtime and wearing warm clothes on cold days. You can also use reasoning as an adjective, to describe someone who can think logically. A reasoning adult can make decisions for herself. The word comes from reason, which is rooted in the Old French raisoner, "discuss or argue," and the Late Latin rationare, "to discourse."

Example Sentences

The intelligence level of mainstream humanoid robot models is currently around L2, which means basic multimodal perception, execution and reasoning capabilities, they say in a research note.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 22, 2026

“For Want of a Horse” inadvertently lends legitimacy to this line of reasoning.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 21, 2026

For example, statements like "AI needs to understand the real world" can imply expectations tied to human reasoning, ethics, or awareness.

From Science Daily • Apr. 19, 2026

Mythos — trained to perform deep, multistep reasoning at higher intensities than previous models — is exceptionally good at finding and exploiting vulnerabilities.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 18, 2026

My staff and I discussed how we might use the constitutional reasoning that banned the execution of children as a legal basis for challenging juvenile life-without-parole sentences.

From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson

Related Words

• acumen
• analysis
• argument
• hypothesis
• inference
• interpretation
• premise
• proposition
• rationale
• thinking