Reflect

v. t. [imp. & p. p. REFLECTED; p. pr. & vb. n. REFLECTING.] [Lat. reflectere, reflexum, from re, again, back, and flectere, to bend or turn; It. riflettere, Sp., Pg., & Pr. reflectir, Fr. réfléchir.]

1Sense 1. To bend back; to give a backward turn to; to throw back; especially, to cause to return after striking upon any surface; as, to reflect light, heat, sound, or the like.

Let me mind the reader to reflect his eye on other quotations. Fuller.

Bodies close together reflect their own color. Dryden.

2Sense 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. Young.

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. Whose virtues will, I hope, Reflect on Rome, as Titan's rays on earth. Shak. 3. To throw or turn back the thoughts upon any thing; 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; 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. Sir Wm. Hamilton. All men are conscious of the operations of their own minds, at all times, while they are awake, but there are few who reflect upon them, or make them objects of thought. Reid. 4. To cast reproach; to cause censure or dishonor. Errors of wives reflect on husbands still. Dryden. I do not reflect in the least on the memory of his late majesty. Swift. Syn. — To consider; think; cogitate; meditate; contemplate; ponder; muse; ruminate.