intense

Borrowed from Middle French intense, from Latin intensus (“stretched tight”), past participle of intendere (“to stretch out”), from in (“in, upon, to”) + tendere (“to stretch”).

• IPA^(key): /ɪnˈtɛns/

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• Rhymes: -ɛns

intense (comparative intenser or more intense, superlative intensest or most intense)

1. Strained; tightly drawn.
2. Strict, very close or earnest.

   intense study;  intense thought

   • 1828, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XX, in Pelham; or, The Adventures of a Gentleman. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 196:

     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.

   • 1886, Annie Besant, Life, Death, and Immortality, London: Freethought Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, page 3:

     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.

3. Extreme in degree; excessive.
4. Extreme in size or strength.
   • 1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “(please specify the page)”, in The Revolt of Islam; […], London: […] [F]or C[harles] and J[ames] Ollier, […]; by B. M‘Millan, […], →OCLC, (please specify the stanza number):

     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 […]

   • 2013 June 29, “High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 28:

     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.

5. Stressful and tiring.
6. Very severe.
7. Very emotional or passionate.

   The artist was a small, intense man with piercing blue eyes.

• intensive

• intense in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• “intense”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• intense at OneLook Dictionary Search

• enseint, sentine, tennesi, tennies

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intense

1. Inflected form of intens

• niesten

From Middle French intense. Ultimately from Latin intensus.

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.tɑ̃s/

• audio

  (file)

intense (plural intenses)

1. intense

• “intense”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• seinent, tiennes

intense (comparative plus intense, superlative le plus intense)

1. intense

• intensitate

intense f pl

1. feminine plural of intenso

• sentine, tensine

intēnse

1. vocative masculine singular of intēnsus

intense

1. inflection of intens:
   1. definite singular
   2. plural

intense

1. inflection of intens:
   1. definite singular
   2. plural