Intense Meaning
/ɪnˈtɛns/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjOf a characteristic: extreme or very high or strong in degree; severe; also, excessive, towering.
adjOf a thing: possessing some characteristic to an extreme or very high or strong degree.
Sentence Examples
The heat is intense.
Due to the intense sunlight, his back was sunburnt.
We were all suffering in the intense heat.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The heat from the fire was so ____ that we had to stand far away.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The athlete was under ____ pressure to perform well in the final race and win the gold medal.
Word Origin & History
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”)).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 1666 September 16 (Gregorian calendar), John Evelyn, “[Diary entry for 7 September 1666]”, in William Bray, editor, Memoirs, Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, […], 2nd edition, volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […]; and sold by John and Arthur Arch, […], published 1819, →OCLC, page 396:
"[…] 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, […]"
— 1817 December (indicated as 1818), Percy B[ysshe] Shelley, “Canto Third”, in Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of the Nineteenth Century. […], London: […] [F]or Sherwood, Neely, & Jones, […]; and C[harles] and J[ames] Ollier, […]; by B[uchanan] M‘Millan, […], →OCLC, stanza III, page 58:
"[…] 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."
— 1857, John Ruskin, “Lecture I”, in The Political Economy of Art: Being the Substance (with Additions) of Two Lectures Delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, section II (Application), page 48:
"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."
— 2013 June 29, “Floods in India: High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, London: Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 Jul 2013, page 28:
"[T]h' intense atom glows / A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose."
— 1821, Percy B[ysshe] Shelley, Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, […], Pisa, Italy: […] Didot; reprinted London: Noel Douglas […], 1927, →OCLC, stanza XX, page 13:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The heat from the fire was so ____ that we had to stand far away.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The athlete was under ____ pressure to perform well in the final race and win the gold medal.