The story
- Latin · borrowed frommeditātus
- English todaymeditate
First attested in 1560; borrowed from Latin meditātus, perfect active participle of meditor (“to think or reflect upon, consider, design, purpose, intend”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), morphologically as if frequentative of medeor (“to heal, to cure, to remedy”); in sense and in form near to Ancient Greek μελετάω (meletáō, “to care for, attend to, study, practise, etc.”). Participial usage up until Early Modern English.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.