Excogitate

Excogitate (pronounced eks-koj-i-teyt)

(1) To think out; devise; invent.

(2) To study intently and carefully in order fully to grasp or comprehend.

1520–1530: From the Latin excōgitātus past participle of excōgitāre (to devise, invent, to think out), the construct being ex- (out of, from) + cōgitāre (to think, to ponder).  The ex- prefix was from the Middle English, from words borrowed from the Middle French, from the Latin ex (out of, from), from the primitive Indo-European eǵ- & eǵs- (out).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐξ (ex) (out of, from), the Transalpine Gaulish ex- (out), the Old Irish ess- (out), the Old Church Slavonic изъ (izŭ) (out) & the Russian из (iz) (from, out of).  The “x” in “ex-“, sometimes is elided before certain constants, reduced to e- (eg ejaculate).  Cogitate was from the Latin cōgitāre, the present active infinitive of cōgitō and related to the old form coitare.  More common words in a similar vein (if not exactly synonymous) include ponder, develop, consider, deliberate, devise, study, contrive, educe, contemplate, frame, weigh, perpend, ruminate & conceive.  Excogitate is a verb, excogitation & excogitator are nouns, excogitable & excogitative are adjectives and excogitated & excogitating are verbs; the most common noun plural is excogitations.

Consider the student learning the English language.  Diligently, they have memorized the meaning of the useful word “cogitate” and, familiar with the concept of the “ex-boyfriend”, move on to “excogitate”, deciding it must mean something like either “used to think”, “no longer thinking” or “not thinking deeply”.  That would be logical but English doesn’t always follow a logical path and “cogitate” & “excogitate” are synonyms and both refer to the act of thinking deeply and carefully about something, the choice of which to use dictated by their nuance.  Cogitate means “to ponder or think deeply or at length about something with the intention of reaching a conclusion or finding a solution”.  Excogitate implies a more intense or rigorous mental effort, often involving a complex or abstract subject matter, suggesting a process of thinking that involves extracting or deducing information from one's own thoughts or memory, or from external sources, and using it to form a new idea or find some creative solution.  In short, “cogitate” implies a reflective, contemplative process, while “excogitate” suggests a more active, intense form of thinking, involving analysis and synthesis.  The difference therefore can be thought of the distinction between the places to which the process goes.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, 2012.

If that splitting of hairs appeals then there’s also academic philosophy where the concept of metacogitate is a thing describing thinking about the thought itself.  The construct was meta- + cogitate and the “meta-” in this case was used as it was in metaphysics to allude to matters fundamental or foundational.  Of course, being philosophy, it could be understood either as the act of thinking about one's own thoughts or a consideration of one’s own cognitive processes and there wasn’t of necessity any connection between metacogitation and metacognition although one could sometimes be found.  Given that, perhaps remarkably, the philosophy departments seem never have dragged into English the Latin verb recōgitāte, the second-person plural present active imperative of recōgitō (I consider or reflect; I examine or inspect).