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If you adjudicate a competition or dispute, you officially decide who is right or what should be done concerning any difficulties that may arise.
If you describe a decision, rule, or plan as arbitrary, you think that it was decided without any thought, standard, or system to guide it; therefore, it can seem unfair.
A catatonic person is in a state of suspended action; therefore, they are rigid, immobile, and unresponsive.
Cogitating about something is thinking deeply about it for a long time.
Cognitive describes those things related to judgment, memory, and other mental processes of knowing.
When you contemplate something, you either think about it deeply or gaze at it intently.
A cursory examination or reading of something is very quick, incomplete, and does not pay close attention to detail.
If you deliberate, you think about or discuss something very carefully, especially before making an important decision.
If you delineate something, such as an idea or situation or border, you describe it in great detail.
When you envisage something, you imagine or consider its future possibility.
Something ephemeral, such as some insects or a sunset, lasts for only a short time or has a very short lifespan.
Something that is extemporaneous, such as an action, speech, or performance, is done without any preparation or practice beforehand.
When you formulate a plan of action, you carefully work it out or design it in great detail ahead of time.
An impromptu speech is unplanned or spontaneous—it has not been practiced in any way beforehand.
When someone improvises, they make something up at once because an unexpected situation has arisen.
When you act in an imprudent fashion, you do something that is unwise, is lacking in good judgment, or has no forethought.
An inadvertent action is not done intentionally; rather, it is an accident that happens because someone is not being attentive to their surroundings.
When something is inert, it has no power of movement or is inactive.
A judicious person shows good or sound judgment because they are wise and careful in making decisions.
When you are listless, you lack energy and interest and are unwilling to exert any effort.
Someone is considered meticulous when they act with careful attention to detail.
Something that is notional exists only as an idea or in theory—not in reality.
Someone is obtuse when they are slow to understand things; someone can choose to be obtuse when they deliberately do not try to figure things out.
To be punctilious is to pay precise attention to detail.
A state of quiescence is one of quiet and restful inaction.
A reverie is a state of pleasant dreamlike thoughts that makes you forget what you are doing and what is happening around you.
A scrupulous person takes great care to do everything in an extremely honest, conscientious, and fair manner.
If you are somnolent, you are sleepy.
Something soporific makes you feel sleepy or drowsy.
Spontaneity is freedom to act when and how you want to, often in an unpredictable or unplanned way.
Stasis is a state of little change over a long period of time, or a condition of inactivity caused by an equal balance of opposing forces.
Stupor is a state in which someone’s mind and senses are dulled; consequently, they are unable to think clearly or act normally.
If your body is affected by torpor, you are severely lacking in energy; therefore, you are idle—and can even be numb.
Something that has the quality of transience lasts for only a short time or is constantly changing.
If you did something in an unwitting fashion, you didn’t know that you were doing it; therefore, it was unintentional on your part.
A whimsical idea or person is slightly strange, unusual, and amusing rather than serious and practical.
Verb
ruminate
ROO-muh-nayt
Context
After the debate on television, I ruminated on or deeply considered the candidates’ words. Although I carefully thought or ruminated about their statements all day, it didn’t help me decide how to cast my vote. I wondered if the candidates spent much time ruminating about current issues, or if they simply repeated what speech writers and campaign managers told them to say.
CateAte Her Cumin? I ruminated for hours over whether Cateate her cumin; cumin ruminating is no fun, let me tell you that!
Examples
So he left and wandered, delighting in the freedom of Northern Italy, where he could ruminate on matters remote from the subjects he had been force-fed in his highly disciplined Prussian schoolroom. His name was Albert Einstein, and his ruminations changed the world.
— Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author, from _Cosmos_
From February 8 to 10 some 250 planetary scientists and spacecraft engineers gathered here for their third confab—the penultimate meeting before Mars 2020’s final landing site is chosen. A fourth workshop to ruminate further about the remaining candidate sites is slated for early to mid-2018, after which NASA’s leadership will pick the rover’s final destination.
—
Scientific American
While no election or polling-based miscall is quite the same, the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the “Dewey defeats Truman” election offers a timely opportunity to revisit what was a polling and journalistic fiasco, and to ruminate about pitfalls that vex election forecasting.
—
The Baltimore Sun
A ruminant, such as a cow or sheep, has a “rumen” or series of stomachs that attach to its “gullet” or “throat,” whose function is to digest grass. Ruminants will often chew for hours on their cud, or partially digested mass of grass, that comes up from their “rumen” through their “throat” after they have swallowed it once already. Hence, when one ruminates, one mentally “chews” something over and over before coming to a decision.
