ruminate
verb
Aldous Huxley
Did you know?
When you ruminate, you chew something over, either literally or figuratively. Literal rumination may seem a little gross to humans, but to cows, chewing your cud (partially digested food brought up from the stomach for another chew) is just a natural part of life. Figurative ruminating is much more palatable to humans; that kind of deep, meditative thought is often deemed quite a worthy activity. The verb ruminate has described metaphorical chewing over since the early 1500s and actual chewing since later that same century. Our English word comes from and shares the meanings of the Latin verb ruminari (“to chew the cud” or “muse upon”), which in turn comes from rumen, the Latin name for the first stomach compartment of ruminant animals (that is, creatures like cows that chew their cud).
Examples of ruminate in a Sentence
David Sims, The Atlantic, 4 Nov. 2025
A lot of it is simple, disciplined, ruminating in a way that won’t surprise anyone aware of his work with The National.
—Sarah Shachat, IndieWire, 30 Oct. 2025
But beta blockers only address the physical response to anxiety — not the ruminating or worrying.
—The Washington Post, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Oct. 2025
Now Guillermo del Toro — cinema’s biggest proponent of big-screen fantasy — has completed his two-and-a-half-hour version, an epic adaptation with a blockbuster budget, a stamp of auteurship, and decades spent ruminating on the relevance of Shelley’s text in the modern era.
—Rory Doherty, Vulture, 20 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ruminate
Cite this Entry
“Ruminate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ruminate. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
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ruminate
verb
Medical Definition
ruminate
intransitive verb
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