English Explanatory Dictionary

meditation

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A devotional exercise of, or leading to, contemplation.
  2. Any of various types of achieving more or less altered states of consciousness, such as vacancy of mind or prolonged contemplation on a single sensation or thought, through relaxed or focused mental and physical activity generally of a nonstrenuous and non–substance-induced nature.
  3. A contemplative discourse, often on a religious or philosophical subject.
  4. A musical theme treated in a meditative manner.
  5. Careful and thorough thought.

Pronunciation

/mɛdɪˈteɪʃn̩/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-meditation.wav LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-meditation.wav

Word forms

meditation meditations

Etymology

From Old French meditacion, from Latin meditatio, from meditatus, the past participle of meditārī (“to meditate, to think over, consider”), itself from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure, limit, consider, advise”).

Synonyms

cogitation contemplation deliberation mulling musing pondering meditation reflection rethinking reconsideration rumination thought

Related words

meditate meditative meditationist meditativeness premeditation mentation

Derived words

beditation mass meditation meditational nonmeditation theta meditation transcendental meditation
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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