RATIOCINATE verb (rash-ee-os-uh-neyt)

verb
1. to reason; carry on a process of reasoning.


Quotes

Scholars, and such that love to ratiocinate, will have more and better matter to exercise their wits upon.
--*Sir William Petty,*Letter to Samuel Hartlib, January 8, 1647–8


It also authorized the Senate's Revenue Laws Study Committee to (ahem) "study" the concept through this year, then study it some more next year, and, we presume, gradually ratiocinate the complexities of the question into the sunset.
--*Matthew Lasar,*“Municipal broadband haters in NC dealt a blow,” Ars Technica, July 12, 2010



Origin

English ratiocinate comes straight from Latin ratiōcinātus, the past participle of the verb ratiōcinārī “to reckon, calculate, reason.” The Latin noun ratio “reckoning, act of reckoning, calculation” is a derivative of the verb rērī “to hold a belief or opinion, believe, think,” from the root rē-, rēi- “to reason, count, reckon,” a very complicated and problematic root that is also the source of English read and rede (from Old English rǣdan “to read, give counsel”) and riddle (from Old English rǣdels, rǣdelse “counsel, opinion, imagination, riddle”). The Latin combining form -cinārī is a verb suffix formed from nouns to denote a specific activity; its further etymology is unknown. Ratiocinate entered English in the 17th century.