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PENSIVE
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Showing pensive sadness
Example:
the sensitive and wistful response of a poet to the gentler phases of beauty
Synonyms:
pensive; wistful
Classified under:
Similar:
sad (experiencing or showing sorrow or unhappiness)
Derivation:
pensiveness (deep serious thoughtfulness)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Deeply or seriously thoughtful
Example:
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
Synonyms:
brooding; broody; contemplative; meditative; musing; pensive; pondering; reflective; ruminative
Classified under:
Similar:
thoughtful (exhibiting or characterized by careful thought)
Derivation:
pensiveness (persistent morbid meditation on a problem)
Context examples:
When he was gone, Amy, who had been pensive all evening, said suddenly, as if busy over some new idea, "Is Laurie an accomplished boy?"
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
All three looked at each other, and all three smiled—a dreary, pensive smile enough.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
A few months hence, and the room now so deserted, occupied but by her silent, pensive self, might be filled again with all that was happy and gay, all that was glowing and bright in prosperous love, all that was most unlike Anne Elliot!
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Now and again a peaty amber colored stream rippled across their way, with ferny over-grown banks, where the blue kingfisher flitted busily from side to side, or the gray and pensive heron, swollen with trout and dignity, stood ankle-deep among the sedges.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Ned, getting sentimental, warbled a serenade with the pensive refrain...
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
She was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself, she said cheerfully—"But you two are my visitors to-night; I must treat you as such."
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
He felt as if suddenly shaken out of a pensive dream and found it impossible to go to sleep again.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily from his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic and so martyr-like.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
But she certainly did grow a little pale and pensive that spring, lost much of her relish for society, and went out sketching alone a good deal.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Not a tear rose to Burns' eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary expression.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
