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The act of discoursing or reasoning; range, as from thought to thought. Coleridge.

Reasoning; proceeding from one ground to another, as in reasoning; argumentative. Reason is her being, Discursive or intuitive. Milton. -- Dis*cur"sive*ly, adv. -- Dis*cur"sive*ness, n.

Argumentative; discursive; reasoning. [R.] Bp. Hall.

Argumentation; ratiocination; discursive reasoning.

The act of disputing; a reasoning or argumentation in opposition to something, or on opposite sides; controversy in words; verbal contest respecting the truth of some fact, opinion, proposition, or argument.

Dull; stupid. " Drowsy reasoning." Atterbury.

keen, figuratively; to incite; to exasperate; to goad; to urge or egg on. [Obs.] By such reasonings, the simple were blinded, and the malicious edged. Hayward.

g; as, to remonstrate in am emphatic manner; an emphatic word; an emphatic tone; emphatic reasoning.

divan to us by experience or observation, and not obtained as the result of inference or reasoning. Sir. W. Hamiltion. -- Ex*pe`ri*en"tial*ly, adv. DR. H. More.

Skill derived from practice; readiness; as, expertness in seamanship, or in reasoning.

The act of expostulating or reasoning with a person in opposition to some impropriety of conduct; remonstrance; earnest and kindly protest; dissuasion. We must use expostulation kindly. Shak.

d to be done; as, history abounds with false facts. I do not grant the fact. De Foe. This reasoning is founded upon a fact which is not true. Roger Long.

fallacy; illogical; fitted to deceive; misleading; delusive; as, fallacious arguments or reasoning. -- Fal*la"cious*ly, adv. -Fal*la"cious*ness, n.

Excessive enthusiasm, unreasoning zeal, or wild and extravagant notions, on any subject, especially religion; religious frenzy.

o compose; in a bad sense, to invent or fabricate, as something false. How many excellent reasonings are framed in the mind of a man of wisdom and study in a length of years. I. Watts.

nce; answering no useful end; useless; vain; worthless. "Futile theories." I. Taylor. His reasoning . . . was singularly futile. Macaulay.

One who makes excessively nice or needless distinctions in reasoning; one who quibbles. "The caviling hairsplitter." De Quincey.

Making excessively nice or trivial distinctions in reasoning; subtle. -- n.

r of the nature of, an hypothesis; conditional; assumed without proof, for the purpose of reasoning and deducing proof, or of accounting for some fact or phenomenon. Causes hypothetical at least, if not real, for the various phenomena of the existence of which our experience informs us. Sir W. Hamilton. Hypothetical ba…

Ignorant or negligent of the rules of logic or correct reasoning; as, an illogical disputant; contrary of the rules of logic or sound reasoning; as, an illogical inference. -- Il*log"ic*al*ly, adv. -- Il*log"ic*al*ness, n.