After the massacre in Newtown, Conn., we were promised a serious, reasoned, and long-overdue debate about gun control.
That way, Romney reasoned, the move wouldn't look like a stunt.
Castner acknowledges that, in the end, he reasoned his way to the right answer: no gun in the minivan.
Utilizing fear, or taking a reasoned approach to gradual, incremental change?
Clearly, someone had reasoned, there was nothing to be gained from speaking any further.
I reasoned all this out, with absurd deliberation, as I rubbed my eyes and wondered why the clock had stopped.
Before noon, there was some reason for believing that Macora had reasoned aright.
"We live in an age of progress," reasoned the philosophic bishop.
Vainly he reasoned, vainly he admitted the folly of such scruples.
The most tenacious of traditionists must put his case in a ‘reasoned’ form.
c.1200, "intellectual faculty that adopts actions to ends," also "statement in an argument, statement of explanation or justification," from Anglo-French resoun, Old French raison "course; matter; subject; language, speech; thought, opinion," from Latin rationem (nominative ratio) "reckoning, understanding, motive, cause," from ratus, past participle of reri "to reckon, think," from PIE root *re(i)- "to reason, count" (cf. Old English rædan "to advise; see read (v.)).
Meaning "sanity; degree of intelligence that distinguishes men from brutes" is recorded from late 13c. Sense of "grounds for action, motive, cause of an event" is from c.1300. Middle English sense of "meaning, signification" (early 14c.) is in the phrase rhyme or reason. Phrase it stands to reason is from 1630s. Age of Reason "the Enlightenment" is first recorded 1794, as the title of Tom Paine's book.
early 14c., resunmen, "to question (someone)," also "to challenge," from Old French raisoner "speak, discuss; argue; address; speak to," from Late Latin rationare "to discourse," from ratio (see reason (n.)). Intransitive sense of "to think in a logical manner" is from 1590s; transitive sense of "employ reasoning (with someone)" is from 1847. Related: Reasoned; reasoning.