pen·sive

(pĕn′sĭv)

adj.

1. Engaged in deep and serious thought.

2. Showing or expressing deep, often melancholy thought: a pensive look.

[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: pensive, contemplative, reflective, meditative, thoughtful
These adjectives mean characterized by or disposed to deep or serious 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: "[He] had envisioned an actual grove of academe through which scholars young and old might take contemplative strolls" (Tom Wolfe).
Reflective suggests careful analytical deliberation, as in reappraising past experience: "She ... is as wise as if she'd been on this earth for eighty years. Her nature is reflective—not all over the map, like mine" (Alice Munro).
Meditative implies earnest sustained thought: "She sat with her shoulders rounded in some clearly deepening meditative privacy and forgot me" (E.L. Doctorow).
Thoughtful can refer to absorption in thought or to the habit of reflection and circumspection: "I had spoken at once ... to Silvius about our departure, and we talked the matter over, for he was a thoughtful and intelligent child, and children have a wisdom of their own" (Ursula K. Le Guin).

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adv.

pensively - in a pensive manner; "pensively he stared at the painting"

Translations

باسْتِغْراق في الأفكار

zadumaně

eftertænksomt

gedankenvoll

pensivement

zamišljeno

elgondolkodóangondolkodóan

òungt hugsi

pensosamente

zadumane

düşüncelere dalmış bir şekilde

沉思地

pensively

[ˈpensɪvlɪ] ADV → pensativamente

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

pensively

[ˈpɛnsɪvlɪ] adv → pensosamente

pensive

(ˈpensiv) adjective

thinking deeply (about something). a pensive mood.

ˈpensively adverb

ˈpensiveness noun