reflect on

reflect on (third-person singular simple present reflects on, present participle reflecting on, simple past and past participle reflected on)

1. (transitive) To think carefully about (something), and give it due consideration.

   She reflected on her country's role in history.

   • 2023 December 27, David Turner, “Silent lines...”, in RAIL, number 999, page 29:

     The Leicester Daily Mercury reflected on how these concerns were the result of changing ways of getting around: "It might sound a bit crazy or just a little revolting that at Christmas works parties, some should drink themselves into a near-insensible state... This was not serious when they used public transport, but today more men and women use their own cars."

2. (transitive, programming) To access details of (a data type, etc.) at run-time using reflection.
   • 1999, Sheng Liang, The Java Native Interface:

     It is sometimes useful to be able to reflect on class or interface types in native code as well.

   • 2001, Jørgen Lindskov Knudsen, ECOOP 2001 - Object-oriented Programming: 15th European Conference:

     Load-time MOPs reflect on the bytecode and make use of a modified class loader.

   • 2005, Eric Gunnerson, Nick Wienholt, Anders Hejlsberg, A Programmer's Introduction to C# 2.0:

     To define attribute classes and reflect on them at runtime, you have to consider a few more issues.

3. To give an impression of (used with an adverb).

   The recent spate of vandalism by pupils does not reflect well on the school.

• reflect on one

• tenor clef