reflect on

phr.v. to think carefully and seriously about something that happened in the past.

phr.v. to engage in serious or careful contemplation of a past event, decision, or concept. This sense is transitive and requires the preposition 'on'.

“After the project ended, the team took a day to reflect on their mistakes.”

“The retired diplomat spent his final years writing a memoir to reflect on the geopolitical shifts he had witnessed over four decades.”

Academic

phr.v. to make someone or something look good or bad to other people.

phr.v. to result in a particular credit or discredit for a person or entity. Usually used with an adverb like 'well' or 'badly'.

“The student's excellent behavior reflects well on the entire school.”

“The CEO's controversial public statements began to reflect poorly on the company's brand image and stock price.”

phr.v. in computer programming, to look at the details of code while it is running.

phr.v. to access or modify the metadata and structure of a data type or object at runtime. This usage is specific to the concept of reflection in software engineering.

“The program needs to reflect on the object to find its hidden properties.”

“Using the library, the developer was able to reflect on the class structure to automate the generation of database schemas.”

Technical