meditate

meditate

English

Etymology

From Latin meditatus, past participle of meditari (“to think or reflect upon, consider, design, purpose, intend”), in form as if frequentative of mederi (“to heal, to cure, to remedy”); in sense and in form near to Greek μελετῶ (meletô, “to care for, attend to, study, practise, etc.”).

Pronunciation

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Verb

meditate (third-person singular simple present meditates, present participle meditating, simple past and past participle meditated)

1. (intransitive) To contemplate; to keep the mind fixed upon something; to study.
2. (intransitive) To sit or lie down and come to a deep rest while still remaining conscious.
3. (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 he meditated his escape, and was strictly observ'd by his guards.

   • 1956, William Golding, Pincher Martin:

     He lay and meditated the sluggishness of his bowels. This created pictures of chrome and porcelain and attendant circumstances.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:ponder

Related terms

• meditative
• meditation
• meditator

Translations

to contemplate

Bulgarian: размишлявам (bg) (razmišljavam), обмислям (bg) (obmisljam) Catalan: meditar (ca) Chinese: Mandarin: 沉思 (zh) (chénsī) Czech: meditovat Esperanto: mediti (eo) Finnish: mietiskellä (fi) French: méditer (fr) Greek: διαλογίζομαι (el) (dialogízomai) Ancient Greek: μελετάω (meletáō) Hindi: मनन करना (manan karnā), ध्यान देना (dhyān denā) Italian: meditare (it), filosofare (it) Japanese: 瞑想する Khmer: ធ្វើសមាធិ (thvəəsaʼmaathiʼ) Korean: 숙고하다 (sukgohada) Lao: please add this translation if you can Mongolian: бясалгах (mn) (bjasalgax) Ngazidja Comorian: ulolea Persian: تعمق کردن‎, اندیشه کردن‎ (fa) Polish: medytować (pl) Romanian: medita (ro) Russian: медитировать (ru) (meditirovatʹ) Sanskrit: ध्यायति (sa) (dhyāyati), चिन्तयति (sa) (cintayati) Scottish Gaelic: meòraich, cnuasaich Spanish: meditar (es) Thai: ทำสมาธิ (tam-sà-maa-tí), เข้าฌาน (th) (kâo-chaan) Tibetan: please add this translation if you can Turkish: meditasyon yapmak

to come to a deep rest while still remaining conscious

Bulgarian: медитирам (meditiram) Catalan: meditar (ca) Czech: meditovat Dutch: mediteren (nl) Finnish: meditoida (fi) Hindi: आराम करना (ārām karnā) Italian: meditare (it), riflettere (it) Portuguese: meditar (pt) Spanish: meditar (es) Swedish: meditera (sv) Ukrainian: медитува́ти impf (medytuváty)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Esperanto: (please verify) mediti (eo) French: (please verify) méditer (fr) German: (please verify) meditieren (de) Hungarian: (please verify) meditál (hu) Mandarin: (please verify) 思考 (zh) Norwegian: (please verify) meditere Telugu: (please verify) ధ్యానించు (te) (dhyāniñcu)

Further reading

• meditate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• meditate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911

Anagrams

• admittee, datetime

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Italian

Verb

meditate

1. inflection of meditare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

Participle

meditate f pl

1. feminine plural of meditato

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Latin

Participle

meditāte

1. vocative masculine singular of meditātus

References

• “meditate”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• meditate in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette