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Ruminative vs Brooding - What's the difference?

ruminative | brooding |

As adjectives the difference between ruminative and brooding

is that ruminative is causing rumination or prone to it; thoughtful while brooding is (of a bird) broody; incubating eggs by sitting on them.

As a verb brooding is

.

As a noun brooding is

a spell of brooding; the time when someone broods.

ruminative

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Causing rumination or prone to it; thoughtful.
  • *{{quote-book
    • , year=1922 , author=F. Scott Fitzgerald , title=The Beautiful and Damned , chapter=5 citation , passage=They waited expectantly while he directed a ruminative yawn toward the white smiling moon.}}
  • *{{quote-book
    • , year=1864 , author=Charles Dickens , title=Our Mutual Friend , chapter=12 citation , passage=‘It happened,’ returned the man, with a ruminative air, as he drew his right hand across his chin, and dipped the other in the pocket of his rough outer coat, ‘it happened somewhere about here as I reckon. I don’t think it can have been a mile from here.’}}
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    • Synonyms

    * meditative

    brooding

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (of a bird) Broody; incubating eggs by sitting on them.
    • A brooding hen can be aggressive.
  • Deeply or seriously thoughtful.
    • You like T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"? You must be so brooding and deep .

    Verb

    (head)

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • A spell of brooding; the time when someone broods.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2009, date=June 22, author=Jon Caramanica, title=Once-Dreamy Indie Rockers, Masking Hurt With High-Gloss Sheen, work=New York Times citation
    • , passage=The lyrics are different: gone are the dreamy, un-self-conscious proclamations of affection from the EP (which was reissued with additional tracks), replaced with vividly dark broodings , thick with doubt and fear.}}