pensive

1325–75; <French (feminine); replacing Middle English pensif<Middle French (masculine), derivative of penser to think <Latin pēnsāre to weigh, consider, derivative of pēnsus, past participle of pendere.See pension, -ive

synonym study for pensive

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.

OTHER WORDS FROM pensive

pen·sive·ly, adverbpen·sive·ness, nouno·ver·pen·sive, adjectiveo·ver·pen·sive·ly, adverb

o·ver·pen·sive·ness, noun

Words nearby pensive

pensioner, pension fund, pension mortgage, pension off, pension plan, pensive, penstemon, penstock, pent, penta-, pentachloronitrobenzene

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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|DAILY BEAST
Hemingway is shown on p. 89, pensive with rifle at a pheasant shoot in Idaho.
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Venus was the quiet one: pensive and observant of everything around her.
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Another image features the First Lady in a pensive pose, wearing a black Michael Kors sweater and ball skirt.
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It is, alternately, a provocative and pensive soap opera that puts the gothic in Southern Gothic.
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His face was vacant, his eyes pensive, as he stood there undisturbed by the flow of a language he did not understand.
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The elegance of his stature and the pensive melancholy of his classic features invested him with a peculiar power of fascination.
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His little brother Etienne, the tiniest mite in the regiment, looks pensive.
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Ruth 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 Gaskell
The 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

pensive

/ (ˈpɛnsɪv) /

adjective

deeply or seriously thoughtful, often with a tinge of sadness

expressing or suggesting pensiveness

Derived forms of pensive

pensively, adverbpensiveness, noun

Word Origin for pensive

C14: from Old French pensif, from penser to think, from Latin pensāre to consider; compare pension 1

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

pensive

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Origin of pensive

synonym study for pensive

OTHER WORDS FROM pensive

Words nearby pensive

Words related to pensive

How to use pensive in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for pensive

Derived forms of pensive

Word Origin for pensive