Great is the wit of _pensiveness_, and when the head is racked
With hard misfortune sharp forecast of practice entereth in.
GOLDING, _Ovid’s Metamorphosis_, b. vi.
What is care and thought? a plain token of diffidence and
distrust of God. It is an unfaithful care and _pensiveness_ of
the mind for meat, drink, clothing.--BECON, _Works_, vol. iii.
p. 611.
=PENURY.= This expresses now no more than the _objective_ fact of
extreme poverty; an ethical _subjective_ meaning not lying in it,
as would sometimes of old. This is now retained only in ‘penurious,’
‘penuriousness.’
God sometimes punishes one sin with another; pride
with adultery, drunkenness with murder, carelessness
with irreligion, idleness with vanity, _penury_ with
oppression.--Bishop TAYLOR, _The Faith and Patience of the
Saints_.
[=PERSEVERANCE.= This word frequently occurs in literature of the
sixteenth and seventeenth century in the sense of perception,
discernment. ‘Perseverance’ = discernment should be carefully
distinguished from ‘perseverance’ (French _perseverance_, Latin
_perseverantia_) = persistency, constancy. The former in many texts is
spelt with a _c_ instead of an _s_, as ‘perceverance,’ ‘perceyverance,’
‘perceiverance.’ This spelling gives the key to the etymology; the
word is a derivative from Old French _percevoir_, _percever_ = Latin
_percipere_, to perceive. For a good collection of illustrative
passages see _Notes and Queries_ (1st S. vii. 400.)]
If the dead have anie _perceverance_.