calculated

1. 1
   adjective

   Carefully thought out or planned in advance, rather than done on impulse.

   Like a chess player thinking several moves ahead before touching a piece.

   The general made a calculated decision to retreat and regroup.

   Every line in the speech seemed calculated to provoke a reaction.

   Similardeliberate, considered, planned, intentional, premeditated

   Oppositeimpulsive, spontaneous, rash, unplanned

   Note

   Here the word judges acts rather than people: a calculated decision, a calculated campaign of disinformation, carefully calculated media campaigns. Carefully is its natural intensifier. Its usual partners, campaigns and decisions, point to strategy, often with a cool or self-serving edge. Robert Sanders, in Cognitive Foundations of Calculated Speech (1987), sets calculated against spontaneous, which is the clearest way to hear what the word rules out.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of calculate.

   The engineers calculated the load the bridge could bear.

   He calculated the odds and decided not to place the bet.

   Note

   One regular -ed form does both jobs. It stands alone as the past (they calculated the cost) and follows have or be as the participle (it was calculated). The passive with to keeps an older meaning, fitting means to an end, as in a remark calculated to wound. That meaning is where the "planned" adjective comes from. In US dialect, I calculated could also simply mean "I expected" or "I planned."

3. 3
   adjective

   Arrived at or determined by mathematical calculation rather than direct measurement.

   The calculated orbit differed slightly from the observed path.

   Engineers checked whether the calculated stress exceeded safe limits.

   Similarcomputed, theoretical, estimated

   Oppositeobserved, measured

4. 4
   adjective

   Coldly rational and detached from emotion, acting from reason rather than feeling.

   The negotiator stayed calm and calculated throughout the tense talks.

   His calculated demeanor unsettled the rest of the team.

   Similarcool, detached, dispassionate, cold, unemotional

   Oppositeemotional, passionate

   Note

   Said of people, the word becomes a judgment of character, and it takes degrees: very calculated, more calculated, coldly calculated. A judge's phrase quoted in Jerry Clark and Ed Palattella's Mania and Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong (2017), "a coldly calculated criminal," shows how hard it can land. Calculating is its close synonym. Unlike the "planned" adjective, this one describes the planner rather than the plan.

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