Word of the Day Archive
Saturday May 24, 2008
ruminate \ROO-muh-nayt\ , intransitive verb:
1. To chew the cud; to chew again what has been slightly chewed and swallowed."Cattle free to ruminate." --Wordsworth.
2. To think again and again; to muse; to meditate; to ponder; to reflect.
transitive verb:
1. To chew over again.
2. To meditate or ponder over; to muse on.
They come, these scholars, in baseball hats clamped over bald pates or white hair, and polo shirts stretched over bellies more intimate with beer than situps, to ruminate on the game.
-- Edward A. Gargan, "Scholars Look at Baseball and See the American Essence", New York Times, June 27, 1998
Her lyrics are less narratives than fragments of personal philosophy; she ruminates about the miserable ways people treat each other, and looks for comfort in her own solitude.
-- Karen Schoemer, "Good Case of the Blues", Newsweek, March 22, 1999
The people, I observe, are... all of them much given to ruminate tobacco.
-- William Howard Russell, quoted in A Bohemian Brigade:The Civil War Correspondents - Mostly Rough, Sometimes Ready, by James M. Perry
Ruminate derives from Latin ruminatus, past participle of ruminari, to chew the cud, to ruminate, to chew over again, from rumen, rumin-, throat.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for ruminate
