Introspection
[in-truh-spek-shuh n] /ˌɪn trəˈspɛk ʃən/
noun
1.
observation or examination of one’s own mental and emotional state, mental processes, etc.; the act of looking within oneself.
2.
the tendency or disposition to do this.
3.
.
/ˌɪntrəˈspɛkʃən/
noun
1.
the examination of one’s own thoughts, impressions, and feelings, esp for long periods
n.
1670s, noun of action from past participle stem of Latin introspicere “to look into, look at,” from intro- “inward” (see intro-) + specere “to look at” (see scope (n.1)).
introspection in·tro·spec·tion (ĭn’trə-spěk’shən)
n.
Contemplation of one’s own thoughts, feelings, and sensations; self-examination.
in’tro·spect’ v.
in’tro·spec’tion·al adj.
in’tro·spec’tive (-tĭv) adj.
programming, philosophy
A feature of some programming languages that allows a running program to obtain information about its own implementation.
For example, the Lisp function, “symbol-function” takes a Lisp symbol and returns the function definition associated with that symbol. Lisp is particularly suited to introspection because its source code uses the same underlying representation as its data. Another example is Perl’s “can” method which returns true if a given object’s class provides a given method.
(2010-01-19)
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- Introspectionist
[in-truh-spek-shuh n] /ˌɪn trəˈspɛk ʃən/ noun 1. observation or examination of one’s own mental and emotional state, mental processes, etc.; the act of looking within oneself. 2. the tendency or disposition to do this. 3. . /ˌɪntrəˈspɛkʃən/ noun 1. the examination of one’s own thoughts, impressions, and feelings, esp for long periods n. 1670s, noun […]
- Introspective
[in-truh-spek-tiv] /ˌɪn trəˈspɛk tɪv/ adjective 1. characterized by , the act or process of looking into oneself. adj. 1820, from Latin introspect-, past participle stem of introspicere (see introspection) + -ive.
- Introspectively
[in-truh-spek-tiv] /ˌɪn trəˈspɛk tɪv/ adjective 1. characterized by , the act or process of looking into oneself. adj. 1820, from Latin introspect-, past participle stem of introspicere (see introspection) + -ive.
- Introspectiveness
[in-truh-spek-tiv] /ˌɪn trəˈspɛk tɪv/ adjective 1. characterized by , the act or process of looking into oneself. adj. 1820, from Latin introspect-, past participle stem of introspicere (see introspection) + -ive.