pensive

[pen-siv]

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adjective

dreamily or wistfully thoughtful: a pensive mood.

expressing or revealing thoughtfulness, usually marked by some sadness: a pensive adagio.

Origin of 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

Related formspen·sive·ly, adverbpen·sive·ness, nouno·ver·pen·sive, adjectiveo·ver·pen·sive·ly, adverbo·ver·pen·sive·ness, noun

Synonym study

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.

Antonyms for pensive

1. thoughtless.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for pensive

sober, dreamy, thoughtful, contemplative, wistful, absorbed, abstracted, attentive, grave, musing, preoccupied, reflective, serious, speculative, thinking, withdrawn, cogitative, ruminative, pondering, reflecting

Examples from the Web for pensive

Contemporary Examples of pensive

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
Hemingway 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
Venus was the quiet one: pensive and observant of everything around her.
Understanding Serena Williams’s Steubenville Comments
Allison Samuels
June 20, 2013
Another 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
It is, alternately, a provocative and pensive soap opera that puts the gothic in Southern Gothic.
Inside 'True Blood'’s Fourth Season
Jace Lacob
June 17, 2011

Historical Examples of pensive

Do you see how pensive she is, with her cheek resting on her hand?
In a Steamer Chair and Other Stories
Robert Barr
The pale beauty of her pensive face won her friends wherever she went.
Henry Dunbar
M. E. Braddon
Nothing could be firmer than the tone of this letter, in spite of its pensive gentleness.
Henry Dunbar
M. E. Braddon
Florence was pensive, and an air of painful depression hung about her.
Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848
Various
When Macquart was on his rounds, she passed her time in lazy, pensive idleness.
The Fortune of the Rougons
Emile Zola

British Dictionary definitions for pensive

pensive

adjective

deeply or seriously thoughtful, often with a tinge of sadness

expressing or suggesting pensiveness

Derived Formspensively, 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

Word Origin and History for pensive

adj.

late 14c., from Old French pensif "thoughtful, distracted, musing" (11c.), from penser "to think," from Latin pensare "weigh, consider," frequentative of pendere "weigh" (see pendant). Related: Pensively; pensiveness.