meditation

See also: Meditation and méditation

English

Etymology

From Old French meditacion, from Latin meditatio, from meditatus, the past participle of meditārī (“to meditate, to think over, consider”), itself from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure, limit, consider, advise”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɛdɪˈteɪʃən/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun

meditation (countable and uncountable, plural meditations)

1. A devotional exercise of, or leading to, contemplation.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

2. Any of various types of achieving more or less altered states of consciousness, such as vacancy of mind or prolonged contemplation on a single sensation or thought, through relaxed or focused mental and physical activity generally of a nonstrenuous and non–substance-induced nature.

   Hyponym: transcendental meditation

   • 2007 [1995], Richard Rhodes, How to Write: Advice and Reflections, e-book edition, HarperCollins, pages 18-19:

     Free-associating on paper is valuable—letting loose, as I described in the last chapter, and writing whatever you feel like writing, any way you want. It’s valuable when you’re learning to write to help you deal with fear, and it continues to be a useful technique for starting a piece of writing or moving beyond a point where you’re stuck. It’s a good way to develop characters and story by drawing on unconscious associations, free-associating about something (a process that used to be called meditation before meditation came to mean emptying your mind). […] Writing to communicate is a different matter. Professional writers, without exception so far as I know, consider unstructured, unedited free association to be at best only the first stage of writing. Not even Jack Kerouac wrote that way, although he tried to make it look as if he did.

1. A contemplative discourse, often on a religious or philosophical subject.

   Her book is less a cookbook than a meditation on the craft of cookery.

2. A musical theme treated in a meditative manner.
3. Careful and thorough thought.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:consideration

   deep meditation

   in meditation

   He was lost in careful meditation on how best to proceed when a sudden phone call forced him to decide.

Derived terms

• mass meditation
• theta meditation
• transcendental meditation

 

Related terms

• meditate
• meditative
• meditationist
• meditativeness
• premeditation

Translations

devotional contemplation

• Asturian: meditación f
• Bulgarian: размишление (bg) n (razmišlenie)
• Catalan: meditació (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 冥想 (zh) (míngxiǎng), 沈思/沉思 (chénsī), (Buddhism) 禪定／禅定 (zh) (chándìng)

• Czech: rozjímání n, meditace f
• Danish: meditation c
• Dutch: meditatie (nl) f
• Esperanto: meditado
• Finnish: mietiskely (fi), meditaatio
• French: méditation (fr) f
• Galician: meditación (gl) f
• German: Meditation (de) f
• Greek: περισυλλογή (el) f (perisyllogí)

  Ancient: μελετήματα (meletḗmata), διαλογισμός (el) m (dialogismós), σύννοια f (súnnoia)

• Hungarian: meditáció (hu)
• Indonesian: meditasi (id), semadi (id)
• Irish: machnamh m
• Japanese: 冥想 (ja) (めいそう, meisō), 思索 (ja) (しさく, shisaku), 黙想 (ja) (もくそう, mokusō)
• Kazakh: толғаныс (tolğanys)
• Khmer: ឈាន (km) (cʰien), ធ្យាន (km) (tyien), បរិវិតក្ក (km) (pa’re’vi’ta’ka’), បច្ចវេក្ខណៈ (km) (pacca’veekkʰa’na’)
• Korean: 명상(冥想) (ko) (myeongsang)
• Lao: please add this translation if you can
• Latin: meditātiō f, meletemata
• Macedonian: медитација f (meditacija)
• Malayalam: ധ്യാനം (ml) (dhyānaṁ)
• Maori: whakaaroarohanga
• Mongolian: бясалгал (mn) (bjasalgal)
• Old English: smēaþ f
• Persian: خلسه (fa) (xalse), مدیتیشن (fa) (mediteyšen)
• Polish: medytacja (pl) f
• Portuguese: meditação (pt) f
• Russian: медита́ция (ru) f (meditácija)
• Sanskrit: ध्यान (sa) n (dhyāna), धी (sa) f (dhī), योग (sa) (yoga), समाधि (sa) (samādhi), ध्यानयोग (sa) (dhyānayoga)
• Spanish: meditación (es) f
• Swedish: meditation (sv) c
• Thai: please add this translation if you can
• Tibetan: སྒོམ (sgom)
• Tocharian B: ompalskoññe
• Ukrainian: медита́ція f (medytácija)
• Vietnamese: tĩnh lự (靜慮), tư duy tu (思維修), (Buddhism) thiền định (vi) (禪定)

(Christianity) chiêm niệm (vi) (瞻念)

contemplative discourse

• Bulgarian: медитация f (meditacija)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 沉思 (zh) (chénsī)

• Dutch: meditatie (nl) f, overpeinzing (nl) f
• Finnish: pohdinta (fi), pohdiskelu (fi)
• Greek: διαλογισμός (el) m (dialogismós), στοχασμός (el) m (stochasmós), στοχασμός (el) m (stochasmós)
• Hungarian: elmélkedés (hu)
• Irish: machnamh m
• Malayalam: ചിന്ത (ml) (cinta)
• Polish: medytacja (pl) f
• Russian: медита́ция (ru) f (meditácija), разду́мье (ru) n (razdúmʹje), размышле́ние (ru) n (razmyšlénije)
• Sanskrit: ध्यान (sa) (dhyāna), समाधि (sa) (samādhi), चिन्ता (sa) (cintā)

See also

• mentation

Anagrams

• tomatidine

Danish

Etymology

From meditere (“to meditate”), from Latin meditārī (“to meditate, to think over, consider”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /meditasjoːn/, [med̥itˢaˈɕoːˀn]

Noun

meditation c (singular definite meditationen, plural indefinite meditationer)

1. meditation
2. pondering

Inflection

Declension of meditation

common gender	Singular		Plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	meditation	meditationen	meditationer	meditationerne
genitive	meditations	meditationens	meditationers	meditationernes

See also

• meditation on the Danish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^da

Swedish

Noun

meditation c

1. meditation

Declension

Declension of meditation
	Singular		Plural
	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	meditation	meditationen	meditationer	meditationerna
Genitive	meditations	meditationens	meditationers	meditationernas

Related terms

• meditera (“meditate”)

References

• meditation in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• meditation in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• meditation in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)