introspection
- 01 C1 Advanced
the process of thinking deeply about your own thoughts, feelings, and reasons for behaving in a certain way.
the act of self-examination or the inspection of one's own thoughts and feelings. Uncountable in its general sense, though specific instances may be countable.
Simple“After the argument, he spent the evening in quiet introspection, wondering why he had become so angry.”
In context“The novel is less about external action and more about the protagonist's internal journey of painful introspection and self-discovery.”
UsageOften follows verbs like 'engage in' or 'be capable of'.
SynonymsAntonymsextrospection - 02 C2 Proficiency
the ability of a computer program to examine its own structure or properties while it is running.
the ability of a program to examine the type or properties of an object at runtime. Often used as a clipping of 'type introspection'.
Simple“The developer used introspection to check which methods were available in the new library.”
In context“Object introspection allows the system to determine an object's class and available attributes dynamically during execution.”
UsageCommonly used in the context of high-level programming languages like Python or Java.
Synonyms
“Its muffled, grumbling guitar and vocal – shifting from deep and effect-smothered into anguished and emotive – captured a mood of troubled introspection.”
“But So Much for Goodbyes is an album more concerned with introspection, and understandably so.”
From Latin intrōspectiō, noun of action (with -iō) from past-participle (intrōspectus) stem of intrōspiciō (“to look into, look at, examine, observe attentively”), from intro- (“inward”) + speciō, spiciō (“to look at”). By surface analysis, introspect + -ion.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.