pensive

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Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. adjective Deeply, often wistfully or dreamily thoughtful.
  2. adjective Suggestive or expressive of melancholy thoughtfulness.
  3. Syntax Note
    Synonyms: pensive, contemplative, reflective, meditative, thoughtful
    These adjectives mean characterized by or disposed to thought, especially serious or deep thought. Pensive often connotes a wistful, dreamy, or sad quality: "while pensive poets painful vigils keep” (Alexander Pope).
    Contemplative implies slow directed consideration, often with conscious intent of achieving better understanding or spiritual or aesthetic enrichment: "The Contemplative Atheist is rare ... And yet they seem to be more than they are” (Francis Bacon).
    Reflective suggests careful analytical deliberation, as in reappraising past experience: "Cromwell was of the active, not the reflective temper” (John Morley).
    Meditative implies earnest sustained thought: The scholar was reticent, aloof, and meditative.
    Thoughtful can refer to absorption in thought or to the habit of reflection and circumspection: Thoughtful voters carefully considered the candidates.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples

  • Both of them were quiet, pensive, as if neither wanted to broach the subject of what would happen tomorrow. —  Undercover Vows
  • The training is ex-pensive, and it's all gone to waste when a fighter is killed-or runs off to join those damned renegade Wizards. —  Elvenborn
  • Ambrose's trainer and jockey trickled back looking pensive, and finally Ambrose came himself, reddish in the face and breathing out beer fumes in a sickly cloud. —  Rat Race
  • Joe looked pensive, and I wondered why that was. —  The 5th Horseman
  • Merritt's face grew pensive, her eyes heavy. —  Critical Conditions
 

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Words tagged pensive

melancholy

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Pensive has been looked up 470 times, favorited once, listed 56 times, and commented on 0 times.

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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

thoughtful ·  wistful ·  dreamy ·  meditative ·  dejected ·  tranquil ·  sad ·  moody ·  somber ·  listless ·  regretful ·  austere
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English pensif, from Old French, from penser, to think, from Latin pēnsāre, frequentative of pendere, to weigh; see (s)pen- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English pensif, from Old French (also F.) pensif (= Italian pensivo), from penser, think, from Latin pensare, weigh, consider, from pendere, past participle pensus, hang, weigh: see pendent. Cf. poise.
 

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/ˈpɛnsɪv/
by American Heritage

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