REFLECT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Reflect

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/rəflˈɛkt/ /rɪflˈɛkt/ Listen

verb

Reflect v. t. (past & past part. reflected; pres. part. reflecting)

1.

To bend back; to give a backward turn to; to throw back; especially, to cause to return after striking upon any surface; as, a mirror reflects rays of light; polished metals reflect heat. "Let me mind the reader to reflect his eye on our quotations." "Bodies close together reflect their own color."

2.

To give back an image or likeness of; to mirror. "Nature is the glass reflecting God, As by the sea reflected is the sun."

Reflect v. i.

1.

To throw back light, heat, or the like; to return rays or beams.

2.

To be sent back; to rebound as from a surface; to revert; to return. "Whose virtues will, I hope, Reflect on Rome, as Titan's rays on earth."

3.

To throw or turn back the thoughts upon anything; to contemplate. Specifically: To attend earnestly to what passes within the mind; to attend to the facts or phenomena of consciousness; to use attention or earnest thought; to meditate; especially, to think in relation to moral truth or rules. "We can not be said to reflect upon any external object, except so far as that object has been previously perceived, and its image become part and parcel of our intellectual furniture." "All men are concious of the operations of their own minds, at all times, while they are awake, but there few who reflect upon them, or make them objects of thought." "As I much reflected, much I mourned."

4.

To cast reproach; to cause censure or dishonor. "Errors of wives reflect on husbands still." "Neither do I reflect in the least upon the memory of his late majesty."

Synonyms: To consider; think; cogitate; mediate; contemplate; ponder; muse; ruminate.

See images of 'Reflect'

Etymology of 'Reflect'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Reflect" Quotes from Famous Books

... and red lips are gone. We can pardon a sharp word from an inexperienced young girl, who speaks hastily without reflection, but we cannot pardon it so easily from a woman who has had a lifetime to reflect. ...

— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... be the last, the very last, to reflect upon my mother's sister in general conversation; but Doctor Stedman being our family physician as well as our lifelong friend, and Cousin Homer one of the family, I may without impropriety, I trust, dwell on a point which distresses me in our venerable relation. Aunt Marcia is—I grieve ...

— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards

... possibly originated from their speaking most of the languages and dialects of the Peninsula, which they picked up in their wanderings. That the Gypsy chief was so well acquainted with every town of Spain, and the broken and difficult ground, can cause but little surprise, when we reflect that the life which the Gypsies led was one above all others calculated to afford them that knowledge. They were continually at variance with justice; they were frequently obliged to seek shelter in the inmost recesses of the hills; and when their ...

— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... when birds abounded. Sallying forth with it at these times, far into the country, I seldom returned at night without a string of bullfinches, blackbirds, and linnets hanging in triumph round my neck. When I reflect on the immense quantity of powder and shot which I crammed down the muzzle of my uncouth fowling-piece, I am less surprised at the number of birds which I slaughtered, than that I never blew my hands, face, and old honey-combed ...

— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... the surrender of Quebec to the British armies, and until the recognition of the independence of the United States, the extent of empire of the government of which the Castle of Quebec was the principal seat, comprehended the whole American continent north of Mexico. It is astonishing to reflect for a moment, to how small, and, as to size, comparatively insignificant an island in the Atlantic ocean this gigantic territory was once subject. Here also was rendered to the representative of the French king, with all its ancient ...

— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

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