Contemplator

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person dedicated to serious thinking and introspection on various ideas, experiences, or beliefs is considered a reflective thinker
2. An individual who engages in careful and prolonged thought about important subjects or personal matters
3. Someone who devotes time to inward reflection and philosophical consideration of ideas or situations

Etymology: "Contemplator" arrived in English by way of Middle English "contemplatoure," which was itself drawn from Latin. The Latin root is "contemplari," meaning to observe or look at attentively, built from "con-" (together, intensively) and "templum," a space marked out for observation, originally a consecrated area from which augurs watched the sky for omens. So the earliest sense of the family was physical watching, not quiet reflection. The English word follows the pattern of "contemplate" with the suffix "-or," which marks a person who performs an action. Its Latin ancestor "contemplator" was built the same way, so English essentially borrowed a Latin formation and reshaped it through Middle English.

Synonyms: thinker, ponderer, reflector