Reflecting

How to spell reflecting

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce reflecting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reflecting mean?

1. verbThrowing back light, heat, sound, or an image from a surface.
2. verbThinking carefully and at length about something.
3. verbShowing or expressing something, or serving as a sign of it.

Reflecting in a sentence

• The calm lake was reflecting the mountains perfectly.

• She spent the evening reflecting on the choices that led to her career.

• The falling sales figures are reflecting a wider slump in the market.

• The white walls were reflecting the afternoon sun into the room.

• After reflecting for a week, he finally accepted the new job.

• His tired face was reflecting the stress of the past month.

Where does reflecting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin reflectere, which literally meant 'to bend back', formed from the prefix re- 'back' and the verb flectere 'to bend'. In late Latin and Old French it picked up the idea of light or heat being thrown back from a surface, and English adopted reflect in the late 1300s with that physical sense intact. From there the meaning extended figuratively: just as a mirror bends light back, a thoughtful mind 'bends back' on its own ideas, which gave us the sense of careful pondering by the 1600s. The same flectere root still bends through relatives such as 'flexible', 'deflect', and 'inflection', all sharing the notion of bending. Knowing that the spine of the word is flect, not 'fleck', helps fix the spelling, since there is no doubled letter and the c sits firmly before the t.

How the word is built

• re- (back)
• flect (bend, from Latin flectere)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)