Pensive

Definitions: Pensive

Pensive

Adjective

1. Persistently or morbidly thoughtful.

2. Showing pensive sadness; "the sensitive and wistful response of a poet to the gentler phases of beauty".

Date "pensive" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references)

Etymology: Pensive \Pen"sive\, adjective. [French expression pensif, from penser to think, from the Latin expression pensare to weigh, ponder, consider, intensive verb from pendere to weigh. See Pension, Poise.]. (Websters 1913)

Synonyms: Pensive

Synonyms: brooding (adj), broody (adj), contemplative (adj), meditative (adj), musing (adj), pondering (adj), reflective (adj), ruminative (adj), wistful (adj). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Dejection	Sad, pensive, penseroso, tristful; dolesome, doleful; woebegone; lacrymose, lachrymose, in tears, melancholic, hypped, hypochondriacal, bilious, jaundiced, atrabilious, saturnine, splenetic; lackadaisical.
Thought	Adjective: thinking; Verb: thoughtful, pensive, meditative, reflective, museful, wistful, contemplative, speculative, deliberative, studious, sedate, introspective, Platonic, philosophical.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Pensive

English words defined with "pensive": Languishing ♦ nocturne ♦ Pensative, Pensived, pensively ♦ wistful, wistfulness. (references)

Specialty definitions using "pensive": Castaly ♦ Dudu. (references)

Etymologies containing "pensive": Pendant, Pensative, Pensived. (references)

Domain	Title
Books	My Thoughts In Progression: Private and Pensive Moments (reference) (more book examples)

Music	Pensive Union (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Play	Caption
	A pensive sci-fi style excerpt reminiscent of an early 1980's television genre.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Author	Quotation
John Milton	Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, sober steadfast, and demure, all in a robe of darkest grain, flowing with majestic train.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Title	Author	Quote
Les Miserables	Hugo, Victor	Then the old convict would smile with the pensive smile of angels.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Pensive" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 98.33% of the time. "Pensive" is used about 60 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)	98.33%	59	44,010
Noun (proper)	1.67%	1	339,140
Total	100.00%	60	N/A

Expression using "pensive": be pensive. Additional references.
Hypenated Usage
	Ending with "pensive": x-pensive.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "pensive"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		i zhytur në mendime (absorbed in thought, bemused, immersed in thought, thoughtful), i trishtuar (blue, cheerless, comfortless, dark, disappointed, disappointing, doleful, down, dreary, elegiac, funereal, gloomy, grievous, joyless, lugubrious, melancholy, minor, mirthless, miserable, mopish, mournful, rueful, sad, tristful, unhappy, vapoury, wailful, wan, wistful, woebegone, woeful, woesome), i mendueshëm (thinkable, thoughtful), i menduar (advised, considered, intended, reputed, thoughtful). (various references)

Arabic		‏مفكر في أمر, ‏متأمل (meditating, reflective, thinker), ‏مستغرق بالأفكار. (various references)

Bulgarian		тъжен (bleak, cheerless, desolate, disconsolate, dismal, distressed, doleful, dull, dusky, elegiac, gloomy, heavy, joyless, lonesome, lugubrious, melancholy, minor, mirthless, mournful, plaintive, sad, sick, sickly, sorrowful, tristful, wan, wistful, woebegone, woeful), замечтан (dreamy, faraway, languishing, languorous, moony), замислен (abstracted, broody, contemplative, grave, immersed in thought, intended, meditative, preoccupied, reflective, ruminant, thoughtful, wistful). (various references)

Chinese		沉思 (Contemplative), �"�思 (grief). (various references)

Czech		zamyšlený (broody, wistful), vážný (austere, dangerous, earnest, good, grave, major, mellow, portly, serious, solemn, solid, stern, straight, strong, wistful), snivý. (various references)

Dutch		nadenkend (meditative, thinking, thoughtful). (various references)

Esperanto		meditema (meditative, thinking, thoughtful). (various references)

Farsi		پکر, محزون (Despondent, Minor, Plaintive, Sad, Somber, Tragic), متفکر (Thinker, Thoughtful), گرفتارغم (Woebegone), افسرده (Deject, Gloomy, Glum, Hypochondriac, Woebegone), اندیشناک (Anxious, Thoughtful). (various references)

French		pensif, songeur, méditatif. (various references)

German		gedankenvoll (mindful, pensively, thoughtful, thoughtfully), nachdenklich (contemplative, contemplatively, meditative, meditatively, ruminative, thoughtful, thoughtfully, thought-provoking). (various references)

Greek		σκεπτικόσ (broody, cogitative, contemplative, reflective, ruminant, ruminative, sceptic, sceptical, skeptical, speculative, thoughtful, wistful), συννούσ, συλλογισμένοσ (meditative). (various references)

Hebrew		מ�"ור�"ר (meditative, thoughtful). (various references)

Hungarian		gondolkodó (philosopher, reasonable, reasoning, reflective, thinker, thinking, thoughtful). (various references)

Italian		pensoso (labored, laboured, thoughtful), pensieroso (ruminative, thoughtful), penoso (ache, agonizing, distressing, grievous, harm, harrowingly, hurt, pain, painful, puny), malinconico (dismal, doleful, gloomy, hipped, melancholic, melancholy, morose, sad, saturnine, somber, sombre, wistful, wistfully). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		沈痛 , �"�れ気 (sad, sorrowful). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		あわれ�' (sad, sorrowful), ち�"つう. (various references)

Korean		구슬�"�. (various references)

Manx		smooinaghtagh (imaginable, notional, serious, thinking, thoughtful), fastagh (cautious in speech, grave, inarticulate, modest, mum, noncommittal, quiet, secretive, taciturn, tight-lipped, uncommunicative). (various references)

Pig Latin		ensivepay

Portuguese		pensativo (cogitative, contemplative, thoughtful), melancólico (atrabilious, bleak, blue, cloudy, dark, desolate, dismal, dreary, dredge, dumpish, gaunt, gloomy, low-spiritedness, melancholic, melancholy, Moody, mopish, morose, mournful, mourning, sad, somber, sombre), meditabundo (contemplative, grave, meditative), espadachim (bravo, myrmidon, swashbuckler), absorto em pensamentos. (various references)

Romanian		visãtor (air-monger, brooding, castle builder, day dreamer, dreamer, lotus eater, moony, notional, starry eyed, thoughtful, visionary, wistful, wool gathering), trist (bleak, blue, cheerless, dark, darkish, depressing, dispirited, doleful, dolefully, dolorous, downcast, drab, dreary, dull, dumpish, elegiac, glum, joyless, lamenting, maudlin, melancholy, miserable, mournful, mournfully, pensively, rueful, sad, sadly, sorrowful, splenetic, sullen, tough, unfortunate, unhappy, woebegone, woeful), melancolic (doleful, gloomily, gloomy, languorously, melancholically, melancholy, pensively, sad, somber, sombre, splenetic, wistful), meditativ (cogitative, meditating, meditative, meditatively, mused, museful, musing, musingly, pensively, speculative, thoughtful, wistful), gânditor (meditative, meditatively, mind, mused, museful, musing, notionalist, speculative, thinker, thinking, thoughtful, wistful). (various references)

Russian		задумчивый (broody, contemplative, meditative, reflective, ruminative, thoughtful, wistful). (various references)

Scottish		cianail (melancholy). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		zamišljen (abstracted, imaginary, notional, reflective, ruminant, ruminative, thoughtful, wistful), zadubljen u misli (immersed in thought). (various references)

Spanish		pensativo (digestible, drear, dreary, meditative, reflective, ruminative, thinkable, thoughtful, wistful), meditabundo (meditative, reflective, thoughtful). (various references)

Swedish		tankfull (contemplative, reflective, thoughtful, wistful). (various references)

Turkish		dalgın (absent, absent minded, abstracted, deep, distrait, dreamy, engrossed, far away, far off, faraway, glassy, lost, meditative, moony, plunged in thought, preoccupied, reflective, ruminant, ruminative, self-absorbed, stargazer, thoughtful, unheedful, vacant, vacuous, vague, wandering, wistful, woolgathering), düşünceli (abstracted, advised, circumspect, considerate, delicate, forethoughtful, meditative, minded, mindful, philosophic, philosophical, reflective, regardful, ruminant, ruminative, sophisticated, tactful, thoughtful, wistful, worried). (various references)

Ukranian		меланхолійний (atrabilarious, atrabilious, hipped, melancholic, vapourish), задумливий (broody, contemplative, museful, ruminant, wistful). (various references)

Vietnamese		trầm ngâm (contemplative, meditatingly, musing, ruminant), suy nghĩ bu�"n. (various references)

Welsh		athrist (sorrowful, very sad). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	pensare. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "pensive": pensively, pensiveness, pensivenesses. (additional references)
	Words ending with "pensive": expensive, inexpensive, superexpensive, suspensive. (additional references)
	Words containing "pensive": expensively, expensiveness, expensivenesses, inexpensively, inexpensiveness, inexpensivenesses, suspensively. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Pensive" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Fensvig, Pencavel, penise, penive, pensate, Pensee, Pensi, pensier, pensiero, pensif, persive, phengite. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "pensive" (pronounced pe"nsiv)
6	p e" n s i v	expensive, inexpensive.
5	-e" n s i v	apprehensive, comprehensive, counteroffensive, defensive, extensive, hypertensive, inoffensive, offensive.
4	-n s i v	expansive, nonresponsive, responsive, unresponsive.
3	-s i v	abrasive, abusive, adhesive, aggressive, allusive, aversive, coercive, cohesive, collusive, compulsive, conclusive, conducive, convulsive, corrosive, decisive, depressive, derisive, discursive, dismissive, dispersive, divisive, effusive, elusive, erosive, evasive, excessive, exclusive, explosive, expressive, illusive, impassive, impressive, impulsive, incisive, inclusive, inconclusive, indecisive, intrusive, invasive, massive, missive, nonexclusive, obsessive, obtrusive, oppressive, passive, permissive, persuasive, pervasive, possessive, progressive, recessive, reclusive, reflexive, regressive, repressive, repulsive, submissive, subversive, successive, unimpressive, unobtrusive.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Direct Anagrams: vespine.
	Words within the letters "e-e-i-n-p-s-v"
	-1 letter: envies, nieves.
	-2 letters: evens, neeps, neves, nieve, peens, peins, peise, penes, penis, pines, seine, seven, sieve, snipe, spine, veeps, veins, vines.
	-3 letters: even, eves, neep, neve, nevi, nips, peen, pees, pein, pens, pies, pine, pins, seen, seep, sene, sine, sipe, snip, spin, spiv, veep, vees, vein, vies, vine, vise.
	-4 letters: ens, eve, ins, nee.
	Words containing the letters "e-e-i-n-p-s-v"
	+2 letters: expansive, expensive, penknives, pensively, replevins.
	+3 letters: grapevines, inceptives, inspective, perversion, preserving, protensive, responsive, suspensive, vespertine.
	+4 letters: expansively, expensively, hypotensive, inexpensive, papaverines, passiveness, peevishness, pendentives, pensiveness, persevering, personative, perversions, preventions, preventives, previsioned, privateness, providences, supervening, vapidnesses, videophones.
	+5 letters: adaptiveness, apprehensive, compensative, hypertensive, hypotensives, improvements, inexpressive, irresponsive, nonexplosive, overexplains, overexposing, oversleeping, overspending, overstepping, perviousness, pocketknives, positiveness, preconceives, presentative, preservation, previousness, protensively, proveniences, punitiveness, reprehensive, responsively, sportiveness, supervenient, supervention, suspensively, unexpressive, unimpressive, unpersuasive, unresponsive, unsupervised, venographies, vespertilian.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.