Synonyms for meditation
Most common
All synonyms
Noun
1. Contemplation — careful and thorough thought
contemplation, rumination, reflection, thought, pondering, musing, study, deliberation, consideration, cogitation, lucubration
Other
Definitions
- n. 1
Careful and thorough thought.
He was lost in careful meditation on how best to proceed when a sudden phone call forced him to decide.
Related words
- Word family
- meditate meditative meditativeness
Forms
- Plural
- meditations → contemplations, ruminations, reflections, thoughts…
Choose the right word
We consider or deliberate with a view to action, while meditation may be quite purposeless.
J. C. Fernald, English Synonyms and Antonyms (1914)
Example sentences
- reflection Theater is humanity's active reflection on itself.
- contemplation A trivial problem doesn't require long contemplation.
- pondering For a long time, I stood there pondering what to do.
- rumination Rumination is an important stage of making decisions.
Popularity over time
| Word | 1850 → 2019 | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| meditation | rising | |
| reflection | rising | |
| contemplation | steady | |
| pondering | rising | |
| rumination | rising |
Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.
By length
- 5 letters
- study2
- 6 letters
- musing2
- 7 letters
- thought1
- 9 letters
- pondering3
- 10 letters
- reflection3, rumination4, cogitation4
- 11 letters
- speculation4, lucubration
- 12 letters
- deliberation5
- 13 letters
- consideration5, contemplation4
The small number after each word is its number of syllables (study2 = 2 syllables).
In other languages
- Français
- méditation
- Italiano
- meditazione
- Español
- meditación
- Deutsch
- Meditation