- deeply or seriously thoughtful, often with a tinge of sadness
- expressing or suggesting pensiveness
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2026
pen•sive /ˈpɛnsɪv/USA pronunciation
adj.
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026- 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. 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. thoughtless.
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
pensive /ˈpɛnsɪv/ adj
'pensive' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
thoughtful
- wistful
- compensate
- meditative
- melancholy
- museful
- nocturne
- pansy
- prepense
- reflective
- vilipend