Ruminate
verb
To thoroughly consider, explore, or reflect upon some idea, topic or problem
To chew for an extended period of time to aid digestion, particularly by cattle as part of regurgitation and digestion of cud
Usage
With the fast-paced lives the 21st century has us lead, and the numerous devices, people, and networks vying for our attention, it can be hard to carve out any time to just reflect on things. When you do take the time to really ruminate on one or two topics, though, you might be surprised at what new ideas come to mind. The next time you’re on the train to work, instead of scouring your news feeds for updates, try scouring your thoughts for new connections - it just might give you a whole new outlook.
To ruminate is to give profound and concerted consideration to a certain topic or thought. We think about a lot in the course of a day, often to tackle life’s challenges, but to truly ruminate is to evaluate them from every possible angle. Thus, to ruminate on some subject implies that it has multiple perspectives or elements to keep in mind. For instance, you could certainly ruminate on the nature of existence, or even the best way to run all your errands on your lunch break, but it would be a bit absurd to say that you ruminate on how cute your cat is. This is because, under normal circumstances, this last topic does not leave much to be mentally assessed - either you think your cat is cute or you don’t, and how you make this determination is probably pretty obvious i.e. doesn’t require much rumination!
While most often, if you dedicate such considerable thought to a topic, you are said to ruminate on something, it is also possible for you to simply ruminate, meaning to merely ponder, whether or not your thoughts settle on any concrete topic. When you elect to ruminate, it usually also implies that you are moody, emotionally turbulent, or introspective, and that your rumination is an attempt to sort these feelings out. It might also be the case that, though you’re thinking long and hard, you pursue a quick succession of fleeting or indistinct threads of ideas while you ruminate.
Ruminate also means to repeatedly chew food over the course of a protracted period of time in order to digest it. In this sense, ruminating usually concerns the habit of bovines and other large mammals to chew and regurgitate cud. Fittingly, the extended time frame and increased effort required of animals that ruminate their food mirrors the careful and ample reflection of one who ruminates on a concept: just as grass-eating animals must thoroughly break down the tough plant before their stomach can extract nutrients from it, a person must thoroughly pore over a complicated idea to formulate new concepts.
Example: He had to ruminate for a while before he could remember where he left his keys.
Example: The only way cows can digest the tough grass is if they ruminate for several hours.
Origin
Ruminate, which came to English in the early 1500s meaning both “to turn over or consider in one’s mind” and “to chew cud,” comes directly from the Latin word ruminatus, meaning “chewed up.” This latter term stems from the verb ruminare, meaning “to think over or turn over in the mind” as well as “to chew cud,” and in turn from rumen, which means “gullet” or “throat.”
Derivative Words
Rumen: The rumen is the first chamber in the stomach of an animal which digests its food through the cyclical process of chewing and regurgitating.
Example: The cow required medical attention, as its rumen was obstructed by a particularly tough clump of grass.
Ruminant: Ruminant can be used as either an adjective or a noun. As an adjective, it can characterize an animal as digesting its cud, or a person as lost in thought. Its noun form denotes an animal which repeatedly chews cud to properly consume it.
Example: His ruminant camel refused to heed his call to come over to be saddled.
Example: The ruminant student refused to take a break until she had devised the thesis for her term paper.
Example: Like the cow and the camel, the deer is also a ruminant.
Ruminator: A ruminator is one who delves deep into a topic to consider it from all angles.
Example: Ever the ruminator, he stopped listening to his friend mid-conversation to muse on an idea that popped into his head.
Ruminates: This present tense conjugation of ruminate notes a singular, third-person subject is engaging in serious contemplation or an extended period of mastication.
Example: The philosopher sits in the local cafe and ruminates on the nature of existence for hours on end.
Example: The old bull ruminates quite a while longer than the other livestock, encumbered by his advanced age.
Ruminated: The past tense of ruminate describes when someone has undertaken deep reflection, or intensive digestion, at some earlier point.
Example: Even though he ruminated on it all day, he still couldn’t solve his uncle’s riddle.
Example: The camel ruminated for so long that the sun had gone down before it finished its midday grazing.
Ruminating: The progressive tense of ruminate indicates when one is presently caught up in profound reflection or a bout of repetitive chewing.
Example: Every time he stopped in for his astrophysics professor’s office hours, she was always ruminating on a new theory.
Example: After the cows were done ruminating, the ranch hands herded them back into the barn.
Rumination: This noun can signify the extended digestion cycle of cattle or the contemplative process of a thinker. Rumination also has a specialized meaning in the field of psychology, denoting a patient’s propensity to obsessively reflect or dwell on the causes of their state of anxiety or distress, so much so that they neglect to consider solutions or coping mechanisms for it. This condition is considered a type of anxiety, in that one afflicted with it worries to an irrational extent.
Example: The wild deer was so consumed with its rumination that it didn’t notice the curious child approach.
Example: After long rumination, she devised an experiment by which to test her new hypothesis.
Example: His rumination had become so acute that it exacerbated his fear of heights, and he refused to work from his tenth-floor office.
Ruminative: The adjective iteration of ruminate illustrates that someone or something has a pensive quality or inhabits a reflective state.
Example: Whenever he found himself in a ruminative mood, he would close his eyes and meditate for a few minutes to bask in his thoughts.
Ruminatively: This adverb signifies when something is done in a thoughtful or considerate manner.
Example: On the cusp of a breakthrough, the writer ruminatively scribbled a few notes in her notebook.
In Literature
From Pascal Bruckner’s Perpetual Euphoria: On the Duty to Be Happy:
Ultimately, “how's it going?” is the most futile and the most profound of questions. To answer it precisely, one would have to make a scrupulous inventory of one's psyche, considering each aspect in detail. No matter: we have to say “fine” out of politeness and civility and change the subject, or else ruminate the question during our whole lives and reserve our reply for afterward.
In his analysis of our common social interactions, Bruckner remarks at the essential impossibility of meaningfully responding to the small talk of strangers’ casual inquiries into our moods. Specifically, he maintains that, in order to answer the question “how’s it going?” literally, one would have to intensively ponder, or ruminate, over the answer constantly.
Mnemonic
If you ruminate, you have no more room for other thoughts
Thinkers ruminate to accumulate new ideas.
Tags
Thinking, Mind, Brain, Thoughts, Ideas, Cows
Bring out the linguist in you! What is your own interpretation of ruminate. Did you use ruminate in a game? Provide an example sentence or a literary quote.