ruminate

Definition

To chew cud. (Said of ruminants.) Involves regurgitating partially digested food from the rumen.

Etymology

First attested in 1533; borrowed from Latin rūminātus, perfect active participle of rūminor (“to chew the cud, turn over in the mind”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from rūmen (“the throat, gullet”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix), itself of uncertain origin.

Example Sentences

• "A camel will ruminate just as a cow will."
• "There is surely some point beyond which the acquisition of other men’s thoughts must not be carried. This we say for the sake of those helluones librorum, who read forever and without stint; browsing as diligently as oxen in the green herbage of rich meads, but, unlike these, never lying down to ruminate. Life is too short, Art is too long, for a human mind to make perpetual accretion of book-learning, without halt. Sufflaminandum est."
• "I didn't answer right away because I needed to ruminate first."

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