intense
Part of speech: adj
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From Late Middle English intens, intense (“ardent, fervent; extreme, great, intense”), borrowed from Old French intense (modern French intense), or directly from its etymon Latin intēnsus (“strained, stretched tight; intense; attentive; violent; (rare) eager, intent”), the perfect passive participle of intendō (“to stretch out, strain”), from in- (prefix meaning ‘in, inside, within’) + tendō (“to extend, stretch”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *tend- (“to extend, stretch”)).
Inflected forms:
form: intenser
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: more intense
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: intensest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: most intense
pos: adj
tags: superlative
Senses:
gloss: Of a characteristic: extreme or very high or strong in degree; severe; also, excessive, towering.
pos: adj
examples: Nor was I yet able to passe through any of the narrower streets, but kept the widest; the ground and air, smoake and fiery vapour, continu'd so intense that my haire was almost sing'd, and my feete unsufferably surbated.
[…] Nature had a robe of glory on, / And the bright air o'er every shape did weave / Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone, / The leafless bough among the leaves alone, / Had being clearer than its own could be, […]
[…] Pietro di Medici then gave, at the period of one great epoch of consummate power in the arts, the perfect, accurate, and intensest possible type of the greatest error which nations and princes can commit, respecting the power of genius entrusted to their guidance.
Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale. The early, intense onset of the monsoon on June 14th swelled rivers, washing away roads, bridges, hotels and even whole villages.
gloss: Of a thing: possessing some characteristic to an extreme or very high or strong degree.
pos: adj
examples: [T]h' intense atom glows / A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.
These pendent lamps and chandeliers are bright / As earthly fires from dull dross can be cleansed; / Yet could my eyes drink up intenser beams / Undazzled—this is darkness—when I close / These lids, i see far fiercer brilliances,— […]
As the night came on the yellow stars grew more intense overhead, but the lambent glow in the north did not pale.
gloss: Of feelings, thoughts, etc.: strongly focused; ardent, deep, earnest, passionate.
pos: adj
examples: intense study
intense thought
No mortall nature can endure either in the actions of Religion, or ſtudy of VViſdome, vvithout ſometime ſlackning the cords of intenſe thought and labour: […]
VVe found the Elector intenſe upon the ſtrengthening of his Army, […]
The ceremony began vvith the exhortation of the Father-Abbot, delivered vvith ſolemn energy; then the novice kneeling before him, made her profeſſion, for vvhich Vivaldi liſtened vvith intenſe attention, but it vvas delivered in ſuch lovv and trembling accents, that he could not aſcertain even the tone.
I rose by candle-light, and consumed, in the intensest application, the hours which every other individual of our party wasted in enervating slumbers, from the hesternal dissipation or debauch.
That intense patriotism which is peculiar to the members of societies congregated within a narrow space was, in such circumstances, strongly developed.
[H]er voice gave intensest passion and longing to the words; […]
Of all the questions which, throughout the centuries, have escaped from the lips of man, there is none which has been asked with such persistence, none which has possessed interest more perennial, than "Whence do I come? Whither shall I go?" Man's origin, man's hereafter, have ever been of intensest interest to man.
And the strange sensation became still stranger within her, intenser in its two constituent parts: intenser in pride, intenser in compassionate love—that of a mistress and a mother in one.
gloss: Of a person: very emotional or passionate.
pos: adj
examples: The artist was a small, intense man with piercing blue eyes.
Fair Æsthetic (suddenly, and in deepest tones, to Smith, who has just been introduced to take her in to Dinner). "Are you Intense?"
gloss: Under tension; tightly drawn; strained, stressed, tense.
pos: adj
tags: also
figuratively
Related words: disintensify
intensification
intensified
intensifier
intensifying
intensive
reintensify
Derived words: hyperintense
hypointense
intensate
intensation
intensely
intensen
intenseness
intensification
intensify
intensity
isointense
nonintense
overintense
superintense
ultraintense
unintense
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