Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Meditative; melancholy; pensive.
- noun One who is melancholy, meditative, or pensive.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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And after Auberon and Adam come together in the wreck of their fortunes, we come into what Frye has called the penseroso phase of Romance.
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'There was a calm, deep melancholy about the old man added to the grand courtesy which showed he had been what old books call a fine gentleman, that made him suit his house as a hermit does his cell, or a knight his castle; but breaking in on this "penseroso" scene, there was Guy --'
The Heir of Redclyffe Charlotte Mary Yonge 1862
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"What, Arthur! thou art quite the 'penseroso' to-night.
Arthur Mervyn Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 Charles Brockden Brown 1790
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Scholar, screenwriter, novelist and corduroy-jacket-wearing babe-magnet; the writer we all wish and imagine ourselves to be; the grand seigneur, il penseroso, and one of the smartest, funniest, richest, solemnest, most multilingual creatures in all of contemporary fiction.
Book Review Roundup 2010
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Such identifications again smack of anthropomorphic narcissism, not to mention of the pathetic fallacy, especially in light of the poet's prior indictment of the solipsistic penseroso whose "melancholy" personificationsbad figures of speechmerely tell back "the tale" of his "own sorrows" (20-21).
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Hamilton observed that his countenance, from that moment, wore occasional marks of the _penseroso_ in his bosom.
The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Volume 2 James Harrison
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Let others prepare their parchment-bound portfolios, throw their visages into the _penseroso_, fling their curls back from their brows, unbutton their shirt-collars, and, thus Byronised, begin.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 Various
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Helmont; and of a Vaughan who 'saw eternity the other night'; of a Traherne, who should never enjoy the world aright without some illumination from his star; of a young Milton, _penseroso, _ out watching the Bear in some high lonely tower with thrice-great
The Crest-Wave of Evolution A Course of Lectures in History, Given to the Graduates' Class in the Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in the College-Year 1918-19 Kenneth Morris 1908
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As for _il penseroso_ Pepper, he took this intrusion of merry music upon his sympathies very ill.
Love Me Little, Love Me Long Charles Reade 1849
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Throwing a _penseroso_ air into his thin cheeks, our Don then began a few preliminary thrummings, which set my teeth on edge, and made Tarleton put both hands to his ears.
Devereux — Complete Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838
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