pensive
dreamily or wistfully thoughtful: a pensive mood.
expressing or revealing thoughtfulness, usually marked by some sadness: a pensive adagio.
Origin of pensive
1synonym study For pensive
Opposites for pensive
Other words from pensive
- pen·sive·ly, adverb
- pen·sive·ness, noun
- o·ver·pen·sive, adjective
- o·ver·pen·sive·ly, adverb
- o·ver·pen·sive·ness, noun
Words Nearby pensive
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use pensive in a sentence
One of us cautious and pensive, one of us quick and outspoken.
Mara Wilson Remembers Robin Williams: We're All His Goddamn Kids | Mara Wilson | August 18, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTHemingway is shown on p. 89, pensive with rifle at a pheasant shoot in Idaho.
Defining American Cool From Walt Whitman to Tina Fey and Johnny Depp | Jason Berry | March 25, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTVenus was the quiet one: pensive and observant of everything around her.
Understanding Serena Williams’s Steubenville Comments | Allison Samuels | June 20, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTAnother image features the First Lady in a pensive pose, wearing a black Michael Kors sweater and ball skirt.
Michelle Obama's Second Vogue Cover Released | Misty White Sidell | March 14, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTIt is, alternately, a provocative and pensive soap opera that puts the gothic in Southern Gothic.
His face was vacant, his eyes pensive, as he stood there undisturbed by the flow of a language he did not understand.
St. Martin's Summer | Rafael SabatiniThe elegance of his stature and the pensive melancholy of his classic features invested him with a peculiar power of fascination.
Madame Roland, Makers of History | John S. C. AbbottHis little brother Etienne, the tiniest mite in the regiment, looks pensive.
Child Life In Town And Country | Anatole FranceRuth was too shy to keep up the conversation by any remark of her own, although his gentle, pensive manner was very winning.
Ruth | Elizabeth Cleghorn GaskellThe poet's lyre has not many strings, and the strains of sadness, of pensive melancholy, are almost absent.
Frdric Mistral | Charles Alfred Downer
British Dictionary definitions for pensive
/ (ˈpɛnsɪv) /
deeply or seriously thoughtful, often with a tinge of sadness
expressing or suggesting pensiveness
Origin of pensive
1Derived forms of pensive
- pensively, adverb
- pensiveness, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Browse