The Collaborative International Dictionary
Reason \Rea"son\ (r[=e]"z'n), n. [OE. resoun, F. raison, fr. L. ratio (akin to Goth. ra[thorn]j[=o] number, account, gara[thorn]jan to count, G. rede speech, reden to speak), fr. reri, ratus, to reckon, believe, think. Cf. Arraign, Rate, Ratio, Ration.]
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A thought or a consideration offered in support of a determination or an opinion; a just ground for a conclusion or an action; that which is offered or accepted as an explanation; the efficient cause of an occurrence or a phenomenon; a motive for an action or a determination; proof, more or less decisive, for an opinion or a conclusion; principle; efficient cause; final cause; ground of argument.
I'll give him reasons for it.
--Shak.The reason of the motion of the balance in a wheel watch is by the motion of the next wheel.
--Sir M. Hale.This reason did the ancient fathers render, why the church was called ``catholic.''
--Bp. Pearson.Virtue and vice are not arbitrary things; but there is a natural and eternal reason for that goodness and virtue, and against vice and wickedness.
--Tillotson. -
The faculty or capacity of the human mind by which it is distinguished from the intelligence of the inferior animals; the higher as distinguished from the lower cognitive faculties, sense, imagination, and memory, and in contrast to the feelings and desires. Reason comprises conception, judgment, reasoning, and the intuitional faculty. Specifically, it is the intuitional faculty, or the faculty of first truths, as distinguished from the understanding, which is called the discursive or ratiocinative faculty.
We have no other faculties of perceiving or knowing anything divine or human, but by our five senses and our reason.
--P. Browne.In common and popular discourse, reason denotes that power by which we distinguish truth from falsehood, and right from wrong, and by which we are enabled to combine means for the attainment of particular ends.
--Stewart.Reason is used sometimes to express the whole of those powers which elevate man above the brutes, and constitute his rational nature, more especially, perhaps, his intellectual powers; sometimes to express the power of deduction or argumentation.
--Stewart.By the pure reason I mean the power by which we become possessed of principles.
--Coleridge.The sense perceives; the understanding, in its own peculiar operation, conceives; the reason, or rationalized understanding, comprehends.
--Coleridge. -
Due exercise of the reasoning faculty; accordance with, or that which is accordant with and ratified by, the mind rightly exercised; right intellectual judgment; clear and fair deductions from true principles; that which is dictated or supported by the common sense of mankind; right conduct; right; propriety; justice.
I was promised, on a time, To have reason for my rhyme.
--Spenser.But law in a free nation hath been ever public reason; the enacted reason of a parliament, which he denying to enact, denies to govern us by that which ought to be our law; interposing his own private reason, which to us is no law.
--Milton.The most probable way of bringing France to reason would be by the making an attempt on the Spanish West Indies.
--Addison. -
(Math.) Ratio; proportion. [Obs.]
--Barrow.By reason of, by means of; on account of; because of. ``Spain is thin sown of people, partly by reason of the sterility of the soil.''
--Bacon.In reason,
In all reason, in justice; with rational ground; in a right view.
When anything is proved by as good arguments as a thing of that kind is capable of, we ought not, in reason, to doubt of its existence.
--Tillotson.It is reason, it is reasonable; it is right. [Obs.]
Yet it were great reason, that those that have children should have greatest care of future times.
--Bacon.Syn: Motive; argument; ground; consideration; principle; sake; account; object; purpose; design. See Motive, Sense.
Usage examples of "by reason of".
Either his exile has been the mysterious end to his misdeeds, or he has appeared upon the scene to claim interest by reason of an equally unintelligible love of crime acquired during his experience in a penal settlement.
She had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of her dabbling in the spring on the preceding evening.
The Avonlea young people had been practicing for weeks, and all the scholars were especially interested in it by reason of older brothers and sisters who were going to take part.
Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded not guilty to an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent and so forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French King, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, that was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, had in preparation to .
In the day-time, by reason of the great heat, they lurk in caverns, from whence, at night, they issue to seek their food, and whatever beast they meet with and can lay hold of, whether tiger, wolf, or any other, they devour.
Thy blood is noble beyond measure by reason of thy kinship to Belgarath.
Macklewain, who had been prevented from attending the dinner by reason of an accident to a constable at Norfolk Bay, which had claimed his professional attention.
This much I did foresee: that although the Thas attack had failed, mainly by reason of that extraordinary flood, it would not be the last.
He bethought him how he could have taught her out of the strange store of learning which his roving life had won for him, how he could have confided to her his real name, and perhaps purchased for her wealth and honour by reason of it.
The Gaikowar showed us how the thing was done when he gave it to Luigi, and before that night was ended, Luigi had used the knife, and the Gaikowar was a man short by reason of it.
He became confused, ultimately, by reason of the scenes not being taken consecutively.
His father had been our ambassador at Madrid when Isabella was young, and Prim unthought of, but had retired from the Diplomatic Service in a capricious moment of annoyance at not being offered the Embassy at Paris, a post to which he considered that he was fully entitled by reason of his birth, his indolence, the good English of his despatches, and his inordinate passion for pleasure.
He had no fresh water, and though, by reason of the soaking he had received, he had hitherto felt little inconvenience from this cause, the salt and acrid mussels speedily induced a raging thirst, which he could not alleviate.
Plunged into prison, hurriedly tried, and by reason of his surroundings ignorant of the death of his father and his own fortune, he had hitherto--in his agony and sullen gloom--held aloof from the scoundrels who surrounded him, and repelled their hideous advances of friendship.
Grimes, who, by reason of the dint in his skull, had been left behind, was walking about the sea-beach, talking mysteriously, and shaking his fist at an imaginary foe.