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Pensiveness

   Also found in: Wikipedia 0.12 sec.
pen·sive  (pnsv)
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 pnsre, frequentative of pendere, to weigh; see (s)pen- in Indo-European roots.]

pensive·ly adv.
pensive·ness n.
Synonyms: pensive, contemplative, reflective, meditative, thoughtful
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.
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun1.pensiveness - persistent morbid meditation on a problem
melancholy - a feeling of thoughtful sadness
2.pensiveness - deep serious thoughtfulness
thoughtfulness - the trait of thinking carefully before acting

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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
If my countenance expressed what I aimed at, it was composed and dignified; and yet, with a degree of pensiveness which might convince him that I was not quite happy.
The sportive sunlight -- feebly sportive, at best, in the predominant pensiveness of the day and scene -- withdrew itself as they came nigh, and left the spots where it had danced the drearier, because they had hoped to find them bright.
The tragic circumstance which strengthened and consecrated their natural community of interest had, one might think, something to do with the far-reaching pensiveness even of their most humorous writing, touching often the deepest springs of pity and awe, as the way of the highest humour is--a way, however, very different from that of the humorists of the eighteenth century.
 
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