reason
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɹiːzn̩/
ipa: [ˈɹiːzn̩]
ipa: [ˈɹɪjzn̩]
ipa: [ˈɹɪjzən]
ipa: [ˈɹi(ː)z(ə)n]
ipa: [ˈɹiːz(ə)n]
rhymes: -iːzən
Forms: form: reasons
Etymology: From Middle English resoun, reson, from Anglo-Norman raisun (Old French raison), from Latin ratiō, from ratus, past participle of reor (“reckon”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂reh₁- (“to think”), reanalysed root of *h₂er- (“to put together”). Displaced native Middle English reden (found in compounds), from Old English rǣden (“condition, stipulation, calculation, direction”), from the same Proto-Indo-European source (compare West Frisian reden (“reason”), Dutch reden (“reason”)). Doublet of ration and ratio.
Senses: examples: text: The reason this tree fell is that it had rotted.
text: There is a reason why so many should be symmetrical: The selective advantage in a symmetrical complex is enjoyed by all the subunits[…]
ref: 1996, Daniel Clement Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, page 198:
synonyms: occasion
glosses: A cause:
That which causes something: an efficient cause, a proximate cause.
examples: text: The reason I robbed the bank was that I needed the money.
text: If you don't give me a reason to go with you, I won't.
text: This is the reason why he proposes to offer a libation, to atone for the abuse of the day by their diversions.
ref: 1806, Anonymous, Select Notes to Book XXI, in, Alexander Pope, translator, The Odyssey of Homer, volume 6 (London, F.J. du Roveray), page 37
text: Ralph Touchett, for reasons best known to himself, had seen fit to say that Gilbert Osmond was not a good fellow[…]
ref: 1908, Henry James, chapter 10, in The Portrait of a Lady (The Novels and Tales of Henry James), New York edition, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC; republished as The Portrait of a Lady (EBook #283), United States: Project Gutenberg, 1 September 2001:
synonyms: occasion
glosses: A cause:
A motive for an action or a determination.
examples: text: I have forgotten the reason he gave for not travelling by air. I felt sure that it was not the correct reason, and that he suffered from a heart trouble which he kept to himself.
ref: 1966, Graham Greene, The Comedians, Penguin Classics, →ISBN, page 14:
synonyms: occasion
glosses: A cause:
An excuse: a thought or a consideration offered in support of a determination or an opinion; that which is offered or accepted as an explanation.
topics: human-sciences
logic
mathematics
philosophy
sciences
synonyms: occasion
glosses: A cause:
A premise placed after its conclusion.
examples: text: Mankind should develop reason above all other virtues.
text: The tremendous tragedy in which he had been involved - it was evident he was a fugitive from Weybridge - had driven him to the very verge of his reason.
ref: 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 113:
text: And the specific distinction between man and beast is now, strictly speaking, no longer reason (the lumen naturale of the human animal) but science[…]
ref: 1970, Hannah Arendt, On Violence, →ISBN, page 62:
text: The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason. The architect of modern science was himself not very modern. He was obsessed with alchemy.
ref: 2014 June 21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892:
glosses: Rational thinking (or the capacity for it); the cognitive faculties, collectively, of conception, judgment, deduction and intuition.
examples: 16th century Edmund Spenser, Lines on his Promised Pension
I was promised, on a time, To have reason for my rhyme.
glosses: Something reasonable, in accordance with thought; justice.
examples: text: [I]f two Quantities repreſented by the Numbers 20 and 4 be compared, by dividing the Antecedent 20 by the Conſequent 4, the Quotient is 5; but inverting the Terms, by dividing 4 by 20 the Quotient is #92;tfrac#123;4#125;#123;20#125;#61;#92;tfrac#123;1#125;#123;5#125;. By which Quotients are declared the Geometrical Reaſons of the propoſed Quantities, becauſe if the Quotient found be multiplied by the Conſequent, the Product is equal to the Antecedent; for in the former Compariſon 5#92;times4#61;20, in the latter #92;tfrac#123;1#125;#123;5#125;#92;times20#61;4; as Things again are referred to Equality.
ref: 1734, Isaac Barrow, “Lecture XVII. Of the Names and Diversities of the Twofold Kind of Reason or Proportion, viz. Arithmetical and Geometrical”, in John Kirkby, transl., The Usefulness of Mathematical Learning Explained and Demonstrated: Being Mathematical Lectures Read in the Publick Schools at the University of Cambridge. […], London: […] Stephen Austen, […], →OCLC, pages 323–324:
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: Ratio; proportion.
Synonyms: topics: cause
word: that which causes
sense: motive for an action
word: rationale
sense: motive for an action
word: motive
sense: thought offered in support
word: excuse
Derived terms: 13th reason
age of reason
beyond a reason of a doubt
beyond reason of a doubt
by reason of
everything happens for a reason
for no good reason
for one reason or another
for some reason
for XYZ reasons
have reason
in reason
instrumental reason
law of sufficient reason
one will know the reason why
practical reason
principle of insufficient reason
principle of sufficient reason
reasonability
reasonable
reasonableness
reasonist
reasonless
reason piece
rhyme nor reason
rhyme or reason
rule of reason
stand to reason
there is reason in the roasting of eggs
thirteenth reason
thirteenth reason why
unreason
voice of reason
with good reason
within reason
with reason