pensive
[pen-siv]
- dreamily or wistfully thoughtful: a pensive mood.
- expressing or revealing thoughtfulness, usually marked by some sadness: a pensive adagio.
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Origin of pensive
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
1. thoughtless.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for pensiveness
Historical Examples
But Salvator was capable of pensiveness, of faith, and of fear.'
Art in EnglandDutton Cook
"No," rejoined Winterbourne, with something of that pensiveness to which his aunt had alluded.
Daisy MillerHenry James
He had grown accustomed to these moments of pensiveness on his mother's part.
The Silver LiningJohn Roussel
Often have I reflected on it; sometimes with pensiveness, with sadness never.
Imaginary Conversations and PoemsWalter Savage Landor
"I cry you mercy," said Warner, with something of sarcasm in his pensiveness of tone.
The Disowned, CompleteEdward Bulwer-Lytton
pensive
- deeply or seriously thoughtful, often with a tinge of sadness
- expressing or suggesting pensiveness
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Word Origin
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
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Word Origin and History for pensiveness
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.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper