Meaning

Inclined to contemplate; introspective and thoughtful; meditative..

Definitions by Sense

1. Inclined to contemplate; introspective and thoughtful; meditative.
2. Pertaining to a religious contemplative, or a contemplative religious orders, especially the Roman Catholic varieties.
3. Relating to, or having the power of, contemplation.
4. (medicine, psychiatry) In a phase of mental activity in which one begins to recognize and acknowledge the maladaptiveness of someone's behavior (such as one's own, or that of a family member or friend); usually with reference to substance use.
5. Someone who has dedicated themselves to religious or philosophical contemplation.

Example Sentences

Compared with the greatest poets, he may be said to be the poet of unpoetical natures, possessed of quiet and contemplative tastes. But unpoetical natures are precisely those which require poetic cultivation. This cultivation Wordsworth is much more fitted to give, than poets who are intrinsically far more poets than he.

Whether the nuns of yore, being of a submissive rather than a stiff-necked generation, habitually bent their contemplative heads to avoid collision with the beams in the low ceilings of the many chambers of their House [...] may be matters of interest to its haunting ghosts (if any), but constitute no item in Miss Twinkleton's half-yearly accounts.

contemplative faculties

Like the white page that surrounds the darkness of each letter you are reading here, eternity surrounds each heartbeat, and as the contemplative watches his breath, he can move out of time through the doorway which opens in the interval between each heartbeat.

The contemplative must not expect exotic feelings, visions or heavenly voices; these did not come from God but from his own fevered imagination and would merely distract him from his true objective [...].

Word Forms

• more contemplative
• most contemplative
• contemplatives

Synonyms for contemplative

Related Words

When Should You Use Contemplative?

Use contemplative when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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