excogitate

It was long before little Isie got to sleep, what with attempting to realize the actual condition of Alec Forbes, and trying to excogitate the best means for his deliverance.

From Alec Forbes of Howglen by MacDonald, George

Yet cause must be assigned, and the best form of words he could excogitate ran thus: 'Family circumstances render it desirable—almost necessary—that I should spend the next twelve months in London.

From Born in Exile by Gissing, George

And to speak generally, in regard of things celestial he set his face against attempts to excogitate the machinery by which the divine power formed its several operations.

From The Memorabilia by Dakyns, Henry Graham

But they err who excogitate from it those severe dogmas which express only dreams of the imagination and wishes of the religious spirit.

From History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology by Hurst, J. F. (John Fletcher)

Yet even Varchi shares the prevailing conviction that the proper method is first to excogitate a perfect political system, and then to impress that like a stamp upon the material of the commonwealth.

From Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) The Age of the Despots by Symonds, John Addington

Last month, having excogitated 290 questions and created perhaps the most elaborate thinking test ever devised, they stunned a group of the nation's smartest high-school graduates with it.

From Time Magazine Archive

The penalties excogitated in past centuries were varied: flogging, hard labour, imprisonment, and exile.

From Criminal Man According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso by Lombroso, Gina

Here, for a week or a fortnight, the candidates sat and excogitated, unable to lie down at night, sleeping, if they could, in their chairs.

From Appearances Being Notes of Travel by Dickinson, G. Lowes (Goldsworthy Lowes)

I can’t say as I did, sir, but it was cooriously enough excogitated for me.

From Black Ivory by Pearson, Francis B.

The philosophies excogitated by the insulated intellect help nothing toward even a glimpse of these secrets.

From An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry by Corson, Hiram

It features essays by 22 scholars, all solemnly excogitating on such weighty matters as whether the horseshoes in his pictures are from dray horses or Thoroughbreds.

From Time Magazine Archive

He set about excogitating an alphabet; but actually forgot to give names to his letters, which afterwards baffled him before literary men.

From Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 by Disraeli, Isaac

Hence, too, it is that we hunt through the mental train, excogitating from the present or some other, and from similar or contrary or coadjacent.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 7 "Arundel, Thomas" to "Athens" by Various

It is a marvellous thing that they who engage in excogitating this kind of double-meaning literature about bimetallism, should suppose that the people can any longer be deluded with it.

From The Arena Volume 18, No. 93, August, 1897 by Various

An execrable Triumvirate—a scandalum magnatum to all public bodies: I suppose they and their adherents are now sitting in Pandemonium, excogitating their diabolical machinations against us.

From The Politician Out-Witted by Moses, Montrose Jonas