consider

consider 1 Consider, study, contemplate, weigh, excogitate are comparable chiefly as transitive verbs meaning to fix the mind for a time on something in order to increase one's knowledge or understanding of it or to solve a problem involved in it.

Consider often suggests little more than an applying of one's mind

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a proposal so unreasonable that one does not need to consider it

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but sometimes it also carries such a restricting implication as that of a definite point of view

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in the last paragraphs we have considered science as a steadily advancing army of ascertained facts— Inge

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or as that of thinking over

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the publishers told him they would consider his book

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marriage is an action too freely practiced and too seldom adequately considered— Rose Macaulay

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in Florida consider the flamingo, its color passion but its neck a question— Warren

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or as that of casting about in order to reach a suitable conclusion, opinion, or decision

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when I came to consider his conduct, I realized that he was guilty of a confusion— T. S. Eliot

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Study implies greater mental concentration than consider; usually it also suggests more care for the details or minutiae and more of an effort to comprehend fully or to learn all the possibilities, applications, variations, or relations

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the president said that the bill must be studied before he reached a decision regarding the signing or vetoing of it

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a work of architecture that deserves to be studied closely

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study a patient's reactions to a new treatment

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I like very naturally to think that I am being read; but the idea that I am being studied fills me, after the first outburst of laughter, with a deepening gloom— Huxley

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Bryce, who had studied the matter so thoroughly, was wont to insist it is the smallest democracies which today stand highest in the scale— Ellis

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Contemplate (see also SEE) implies, like meditate (see under PONDER), the focusing of one's attention upon a thing and a close dwelling upon it; the term, however, does not always carry a clear implication of the purpose or result. When the object on which the mind rests is a plan, a project, or an imaginative conception, the word usually suggests its formulation in detail or its enjoyment as envisioned

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Henchard bent and kissed her cheek. The moment and the act he had contemplated for weeks with a thrill of pleasure— Hardy

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the poet "has an idea," and in the course of contemplating it he draws up from his subconscious a string of associated ideas and images— Day Lewis

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When the object contemplated lies outside the mind and has either material or immaterial existence, the term suggests an attempt to increase one's knowledge and comprehension of it through minute scrutiny and meditation

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nature is beautiful only to the mind which is prepared to apprehend her beauty, to contemplate her for her own sake apart from the practical delight she brings— Alexander

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the opinion . . . widely held, that while science, by a deliberate abstraction, contemplates a world of facts without values, religion contemplates values apart from facts— Inge

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Weigh (compare PONDER) implies evaluation of something and especially of one thing in respect to another and relevant thing or things; it suggests an attempt to get at the truth by a balancing (as of counterclaims, contradictory data, or conflicting evidence)

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in teaching the young to think hard, any subject will answer. The problem is to get them to weigh evidence, draw accurate inferences . . . and form judgments— Eliot

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it is not enough to count, we must evaluate; observations are not to be numbered, they are to be weighed— Ellis

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Excogitate is often replaced by think out and implies the application of the mind to something so that one may find the solution of the problems involved

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excogitate a plan whereby poverty may be relieved without unduly burdening the taxpayers

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there may have been a time when the scientific inquirer sat still in his chair to excogitate science— Dewey

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Analogous words: *ponder, meditate, ruminate, muse: reflect, cogitate, *think, reason, speculate: inspect, examine, *scrutinize, scan

Contrasted words: ignore, *neglect, overlook, disregard, slight

2 Consider, regard, account, reckon, deem denote to hold the view or opinion that someone or something is in fact as described or designated. They are often used interchangeably, but there are shadings of meaning that allow them to be discriminated.

Consider suggests a conclusion reached through reflection

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he considers exercise a waste of energy

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it seems, however, best to consider as literature only works in which the aesthetic function is dominant— Rene Wellek & Austin Warren

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Regard may retain its primary implication of looking upon. Sometimes it suggests a judgment based on appearances

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I was . . . plainly regarded as a possible purchaser— L. P. Smith

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Often it implies a point of view, sometimes merely personal, sometimes partisan

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the regulations of the state were not regarded by the Greeks—as they are apt to be by modern men—as so many vexatious, if necessary, restraints on individual liberty— Dickinson

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a church . . . which re-garded all dissentients as rebels and traitors— Inge

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Account and reckon to some extent retain their basic implications of counting or calculating, and in comparison with the other terms they stress such value-related factors as evaluation and differentiation

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these trees were not reckoned of much value

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another field where the dominance of the method of sociology may be reckoned as assured— Cardozo

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I account the justice which is grounded on utility to be the . . . most sacred and binding part of all morality— J. S. Mill

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Deem is somewhat literary. It is often used as the equivalent of consider, but it distinctively stresses judgment rather than reflection

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behind the economic problem lies a psychological or ethical problem, that of getting persons to recognize truths which they deem it to their interest to avoid— Hobson

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the first time he made a helmet, he tested its capacity for resisting blows, and battered it out of shape; next time he did not test it, but deemed it to be a very good helmet— Russell

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investigation of all the facts which it deems relevant— Truman

Analogous words: *think, conceive, imagine, fancy: judge, gather, *infer, conclude