pensive
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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).
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).
pensive
(ˈpɛnsɪv)adj
1. deeply or seriously thoughtful, often with a tinge of sadness
2. expressing or suggesting pensiveness
[C14: from Old French pensif, from penser to think, from Latin pensāre to consider; compare pension1]
ˈpensively adv
ˈpensiveness n
pen•sive
(ˈpɛn sɪv)adj.
1. dreamily or wistfully thoughtful.
2. expressing thoughtfulness or sadness.
[1325–75; Middle English pensif < Middle French, derivative of penser to think < Latin pēnsāre to weigh, consider, derivative of pendere. See pension, -ive]
pen′sive•ly, adv.
pen′sive•ness, n.
syn: pensive, meditative, reflective suggest quiet modes of apparent or real thought. pensive 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: a slow, meditative reply. reflective has a strong implication of orderly, perhaps analytic, processes of thought, usu. with a definite goal of understanding: a reflective critic.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
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| Adj. | 1. | pensive - deeply or seriously thoughtful; "Byron lives on not only in his poetry, but also in his creation of the 'Byronic hero' - the persona of a brooding melancholy young man"; thoughtful - exhibiting or characterized by careful thought; "a thoughtful paper" |
| 2. | pensive - showing pensive sadness; "the sensitive and wistful response of a poet to the gentler phases of beauty" sad - experiencing or showing sorrow or unhappiness; "feeling sad because his dog had died"; "Better by far that you should forget and smile / Than that you should remember and be sad"- Christina Rossetti |
pensive
adjective thoughtful, serious, sad, blue (informal), grave, sober, musing, preoccupied, melancholy, solemn, reflective, dreamy, wistful, mournful, contemplative, meditative, sorrowful, ruminative, in a brown study (informal), cogitative He looked suddenly sombre and pensive.
happy, active, cheerful, frivolous, joyous, carefree, gay, light-hearted
happy, active, cheerful, frivolous, joyous, carefree, gay, light-hearted
pensive
adjectiveOf, characterized by, or disposed to thought:
cogitative, contemplative, deliberative, excogitative, meditative, reflective, ruminative, speculative, thinking, thoughtful.
Idiom: in a brown study.
Translations
مُسْتَغْرِق في أفكارِه
zádumčivý
eftertænksomtankefuld
zamišljen
í òungum òönkum
liūdnai susimąstęsliūdnas svajingumaspaskendęs savo mintyse
domīgs
zádumčivý
pensive
[ˈpɛnsɪv] adj [person, look] → pensif/ivepensive
[ˈpɛnsɪv] adj → pensoso/apensive
(ˈpensiv) adjective thinking deeply (about something). a pensive mood.
ˈpensively adverbˈpensiveness noun