ponderformal

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

to think carefully about something
considerDon't make any decisions before you've considered the matter.
contemplateHe lay in a hospital bed contemplating his future.
ponderShe sat back for a minute to ponder her next move in the game.
mull overI need a few days to mull things over before I decide.
reflectI spent a lot of time reflecting on what he'd said.
agonizeShe agonized for days before agreeing to take the job.
I'm contemplating leaving my job.
Losing a child is just too awful to contemplate.
I couldn't contemplate living on my own.
He was contemplating his future.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Thinking and contemplating
a brown studyidiom
agonize
agonize over/about something
beard-stroking
bethink
harbour
hit on/upon something
I/we'll (have to) seeidiom
in the cold light of dayidiom
introspect
introspection
navel
reckon
reflection
reweigh
rumination
run through someone's mind/headidiom
scratch your headidiom
self-contemplation
weigh

contemplate | American Dictionary

contemplate
verb[ I/T ]
us/ˈkɑnt·əmˌpleɪt/
to spend time considering a possible future action, or to consider one particular thing for a long time in a serious way:
[ T ]The owner of the team contemplated moving his football club to another city.
[ T ]Sharon is contemplating going to graduate school.

contemplation

noun[ U ]us/ˌkɑnt·əmˈpleɪ·ʃən/

Examples of contemplate

contemplate
If so, one might contemplate a broader regulation covering public speech that is directed at large groups as well as speech directed at particular individuals.
Then, one day the father contemplates staying at work an extra hour before going home and, reluctantly, decides to stay at work.
Such approach contemplates a state vector for robot positioning which is related to environment perception and robot odometry.
Not even those students contemplating a career in music felt that daily practice was necessary to maintain standards.
He propelled people along career paths that without his encouragement they would never even have contemplated.
Clearly these are dramatically different pictures for the reader contemplating long horizon investment decisions.
On the other hand, new translations, computer technology, electronic databases and the feasibility of word searches make such enterprises easier to contemplate.
Ambitious social scientists generally think of physics when they contemplate the possibilities of quantification.
Moreover, relevant federal law specifically contemplates his office taking actions based on zoonotic outbreaks.
The operas, moreover, are self-reflexive: they contemplate themselves.
But, for some, the future was not something to contemplate, they had either ceased to live for themselves or were waiting to die.
This, they argue, is a position which 'constructivism cannot contemplate'.
The length seemed to reflect both the men's verbal ability and emotional overload when contemplating the future.
In the absence of clear experimental constraints, we did not contemplate such additional mechanisms for this model.
But as we readily follow an agreeable object that flies from us, so we love to contemplate blue.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.