Cogitated

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To engage in profound and careful thought on a subject
2. To spend time considering something thoroughly with focused thought
3. To reflect carefully and thoughtfully about a topic or problem

Etymology: "Cogitated" is the past tense of "cogitate," and the verb reaches back to the Latin "cōgitō," meaning "to think." Its ancestry is a compound of "co-" (together, thoroughly) and "agitāre," so the Latin sense of thinking was once a matter of turning something over thoroughly, much as one might shake or stir a thing to examine every side. The English verb arrived in the 1570s, borrowed directly from the Latin past participle "cōgitātus," which is where the "-ate" ending comes from. Over the centuries the word has kept a steady link to deliberate, stop-and-consider thinking rather than quick reaction. That is why "cogitated" suits a slow, careful weighing of a problem, and why it sounds more formal than "thought about" or "considered."

Synonyms: thought, considered, reflected, pondered