ruminate
verb
Simple meaning
To meditate or ponder over.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
roomihnaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹumɪneɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
transitive
To meditate or ponder over; to muse on.
Reflect deeply on a subject
intransitive
To meditate or reflect.
intransitive
To chew cud. (Said of ruminants.) Involves regurgitating partially digested food from the rumen.
Chew the cuds
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To meditate or ponder over; to muse on.
Used this way, ruminate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
To look at on all sides or in all its aspects.
To ponder or reflect on a subject.
To think on; to meditate on.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to meditate or ponder over
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.