deeply or seriously thoughtful, often with a tinge of sadness expressing or suggesting pensiveness
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2025
pen•sive /ˈpɛnsɪv/USA pronunciation
adj.
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025- dreamily thoughtful;
thinking deeply or sadly:He was pensive, looking out the window, thinking about her.
pen•sive
(pen′siv),USA pronunciation adj.
pen′sive•ly, adv.
pen′sive•ness, n.
- dreamily or wistfully thoughtful:a pensive mood.
- expressing or revealing thoughtfulness, usually marked by some sadness:a pensive adagio.
- Latin pēnsāre to weigh, consider, derivative of pēnsus, past participle of pendere. See pension, -ive
- Middle French (masculine), derivative of penser to think
- French (feminine); replacing Middle English pensif
- 1325–75
pen′sive•ness, n.
- 1.See corresponding entry in Unabridged Pensive, meditative, reflective suggest quiet modes of apparent or real thought. Pensive, the weakest of the three, 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: meditative but unjudicial. Reflective has a strong implication of orderly, perhaps analytic, processes of thought, usually with a definite goal of understanding: a careful and reflective critic.
- 1.See corresponding entry in Unabridged thoughtless.
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
'pensive' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
compensate
- meditative
- melancholy
- museful
- nocturne
- pansy
- prepense
- reflective
- thoughtful
- vilipend
- wistful