pensive

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: pen=sive

CIDE DICTIONARY

pensive, a. [F. pensif, fr. penser to think, fr. L. pensare to weigh, ponder, consider, v. intens. fr. pendere to weigh. See Pension, Poise.].

•  Thoughtful, sober, or sad; employed in serious reflection; given to, or favorable to, earnest or melancholy musing.  [1913 Webster]

  "The pensive secrecy of desert cell."  [1913 Webster]

  "Anxious cares the pensive nymph oppressed."  [1913 Webster]
•  Expressing or suggesting thoughtfulness with sadness; as, pensive numbers.  Prior.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

pensive, adj.
1 deep in thought.
2 sorrowfully thoughtful.

Derivative

pensively adv. pensiveness n.

Etymology

ME f. OF pensif, -ive f. penser think f. L pensare frequent. of pendere pens- weigh

THESAURUS

pensive

absent, absentminded, absorbed, abstracted, atrabiliar, atrabilious, bemused, blue, brooding, castle-building, cogitative, cognitive, concentrating, concentrative, conceptive, conceptual, conceptualized, contemplating, contemplative, daydreaming, daydreamy, deliberating, deliberative, dreaming, dreamy, drowsing, ecstatic, elsewhere, engrossed, excogitating, faraway, funky, grave, half-awake, ideative, in a reverie, in a trance, in the clouds, introspective, lost, lost in thought, meditating, meditative, melancholic, melancholy, mental, mooning, moonraking, museful, musing, napping, nodding, noetic, oblivious, pipe-dreaming, pondering, prehensive, preoccupied, rapt, reflecting, reflective, ruminant, ruminating, ruminative, sad, saddened, serious, sober, somewhere else, speculative, stargazing, taken up, thinking, thought, thoughtful, transported, tristful, unconscious, wistful, withdrawn, woolgathering, wrapped in thought

ROGET THESAURUS

pensive

Dejection

N dejection, dejectedness, depression, prosternation, lowness of spirits, depression of spirits, weight on the spirits, oppression on the spirits, damp on the spirits, low spirits, bad spirits, drooping spirits, depressed spirits, heart sinking, heaviness of heart, failure of heart, heaviness, infestivity, gloom, weariness, taedium vitae, disgust of life, mal du pays, anhedonia, melancholy, sadness, il penseroso, melancholia, dismals, blues, lachrymals, mumps, dumps, blue devils, doldrums, vapors, megrims, spleen, horrors, hypochondriasis, pessimism, la maladie sans maladie, despondency, slough of Despond, disconsolateness, hope deferred, blank despondency, voiceless woe, prostration of soul, broken heart, despair, cave of despair, cave of Trophonius demureness, gravity, solemnity, long face, grave face, hypochondriac, seek sorrow, self-tormentor, heautontimorumenos, malade imaginaire, medecin tant pis, croaker, pessimist, mope, mopus, affliction, sorry sight, memento mori, damper, wet blanket, Job's comforter, cheerless, joyless, spiritless, uncheerful, uncheery, unlively, unhappy, melancholy, dismal, somber, dark, gloomy, triste, clouded, murky, lowering, frowning, lugubrious, funereal, mournful, lamentable, dreadful, dreary, flat, dull, dull as a beetle, dull as ditchwater, depressing, melancholy as a gib cat, oppressed with melancholy, a prey to melancholy, downcast, downhearted, down in the mouth, down in one's luck, heavy-hearted, in the dumps, down in the dumps, in the suds, in the sulks, in the doldrums, in doleful dumps, in bad humor, sullen, mumpish, dumpish, mopish, moping, moody, glum, sulky, out of sorts, out of humor, out of heart, out of spirits, ill at ease, low spirited, in low spirits, a cup too low, weary, discouraged, disheartened, desponding, chapfallen, chopfallen, jaw fallen, crest fallen, sad, pensive, penseroso, tristful, dolesome, doleful, woebegone, lacrymose, lachrymose, in tears, melancholic, hypped, hypochondriacal, bilious, jaundiced, atrabilious, saturnine, splenetic, lackadaisical, serious, sedate, staid, stayed, grave as a judge, grave as an undertaker, grave as a mustard pot, sober, sober as a judge, solemn, demure, grim, grim-faced, grim-visaged, rueful, wan, long-faced, disconsolate, unconsolable, inconsolable, forlorn, comfortless, desolate, desole, sick at heart, soul sick, heart sick, au desespoir, in despair, lost, overcome, broken down, borne down, bowed down, heartstricken, cut up, dashed, sunk, unnerved, unmanned, down fallen, downtrodden, broken-hearted, careworn, with a long face, with tears in one's eyes, sadly, the countenance falling, the heart failing, the heart sinking within one, a plague of sighing and grief, thick-ey'd musing and curs'd melancholy, the sickening pang of hope deferred.

Thought

N thought, exercitation of the intellect, exercise of the intellect, intellection, reflection, cogitation, consideration, meditation, study, lucubration, speculation, deliberation, pondering, head work, brain work, cerebration, deep reflection, close study, application, abstract thought, abstraction contemplation, musing, brown study, reverie, Platonism, depth of thought, workings of the mind, thoughts, inmost thoughts, self-counsel self-communing, self- consultation, philosophy of the Absolute, philosophy of the Academy, philosophy of the Garden, philosophy of the lyceum, philosophy of the Porch, association of thought, succession of thought, flow of thought, train of thought, current of thought, association of ideas, succession of ideas, flow of ideas, train of ideas, current of ideas, after thought, mature thought, reconsideration, second thoughts, retrospection, excogitation, examination, invention, thoughtfulness, thinking, thoughtful, pensive, meditative, reflective, museful, wistful, contemplative, speculative, deliberative, studious, sedate, introspective, Platonic, philosophical, lost in thought, deep musing, in the mind, under consideration, all things considered, the mind being on the stretch, the mind turning upon, the head turning upon, the mind running upon, divinely, bent to meditation, en toute chose il faut considerer la fin, fresh- pluckt from bowers of never-failing thought, go speed the stars of Thought, in maiden meditation fancy-free, so sweet is zealous contemplation, the power of thought is the magic of the Mind, those that think must govern those that toil, thought is parent of the deed, thoughts in attitudes imperious, thoughts that breathe and words that burn, vivere est cogitare, Volk der Dichter und Denker.