CONTEMPLATE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Contemplate

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/kˈɑntəmplˌeɪt/ Listen

verb

Contemplate v. t. (past & past part. contemplated; pres. part. contemplating)

To look at on all sides or in all its bearings; to view or consider with continued attention; to regard with deliberate care; to meditate on; to study. "To love, at least contemplate and admire, What I see excellent. " "We thus dilate Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate."

To consider or have in view, as contingent or probable; to look forward to; to purpose; to intend. "There remain some particulars to complete the information contemplated by those resolutions." "If a treaty contains any stipulations which contemplate a state of future war."

Synonyms: To view; behold; study; ponder; muse; meditate on; reflect on; consider; intend; design; plan; propose; purpose. See Meditate.

Contemplate v. i. To consider or think studiously; to ponder; to reflect; to muse; to meditate. "So many hours must I contemplate."

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Etymology of 'Contemplate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Contemplate" Quotes from Famous Books

... catchtrap, and rescue the five-dollar piece. Prisoners were not well fed, she had been told; and the thought of placing clams and dry bread before Billy, after thirty days of prison fare, was too appalling for her to contemplate. She knew how he liked to spread his butter on thick, how he liked thick, rare steak fried on a dry hot pan, and how he liked coffee that was coffee ...

— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... himself and the landscape as he went. The river ran between the stepping-stones with a pretty wimple; a bird sang loudly in the wood; the hill-tops looked immeasurably high, and, as he glanced at them from time to time, seemed to contemplate his movements with a beneficent but awful curiosity. His way took him to the eminence which overlooked the plain; and there he sat down upon a stone, and fell into deep and pleasant thought. The plain lay abroad with its cities and silver river; everything was asleep, except a great eddy of ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the most he asks. For he is but reaching out through and beyond mankind, trying to see what he can of the infinite and its immensities—throwing back to us whatever he can—but ever conscious that he but occasionally catches a glimpse; conscious that if he would contemplate the greater, he must wrestle with the lesser, even though it dims an outline; that he must struggle if he would hurl back anything—even a broken fragment for men to examine and perchance in it find a germ of some part of truth; conscious at times, of the futility of his effort and ...

— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... Sadly did we contemplate the poor remnant of the flock, and guilty did I feel for having left the sheep unattended. At first my mother blamed me sorely for what I had done; but when we talked the matter over it seemed not so much my own fault in leaving the sheep (for that ...

— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... oft at twilight gloom thy grave I pass, 35 And sit me down upon its recent grass, With introverted eye I contemplate Similitude of soul, perhaps of—Fate! To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assign'd Energic Reason and a shaping mind, 40 The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part, And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle ...

— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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