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pensive

 - 3 dictionary results

pen⋅sive

[pen-siv]
–adjective
1. dreamily or wistfully thoughtful: a pensive mood.
2. expressing or revealing thoughtfulness, usually marked by some sadness: a pensive adagio.

Origin:
1325–75; < F (fem.); r. ME pensif < MF (masc.), deriv. of penser to think < L pēnsāre to weigh, consider, deriv. of pēnsus, ptp. of pendere. See pension, -ive


pen⋅sive⋅ly, adverb
pen⋅sive⋅ness, noun


1. Pensive, meditative, reflective suggest quiet modes of apparent or real thought. Pensive, the weakest of the three, suggests dreaminess or wistfulness, and may involve little or no thought to any purpose: a pensive, faraway look. Meditative involves thinking of certain facts or phenomena, perhaps in the religious sense of “contemplation,” without necessarily having a goal of complete understanding or of action: meditative but unjudicial. Reflective has a strong implication of orderly, perhaps analytic, processes of thought, usually with a definite goal of understanding: a careful and reflective critic.


1. thoughtless.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To pensive
pen·sive   (pěn'sĭv)   
adj.  
  1. Deeply, often wistfully or dreamily thoughtful.

  2. Suggestive or expressive of melancholy thoughtfulness.


[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.]
pen'sive·ly adv., pen'sive·ness n.
Synonyms: 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.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

pensive 
1362, from O.Fr. pensif (11c., fem. pensive), from penser "to think," from L. pensare "weigh, consider," freq. of pendere "weigh" (see pendant).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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