# intense

Pronunciation: say "in-TENS" /ɪnˈtɛns/

## Adjective

1. Extreme or very high or strong in degree; severe, and sometimes excessive.
   - Simple: Very strong, great, or severe in amount or degree.
   - _Firefighters battled intense flames for most of the night._
   - _The intense cold of the high pass froze the climbers' water bottles solid._
2. Possessing some quality, such as color, flavor, or brightness, to a very high or strong degree.
   - Simple: Having a very strong color, taste, smell, or other quality.
   - _Ripe blackberries lend the sauce an intense, almost wine-like richness._
   - _Photographers love the late afternoon, when the light turns warm and intense._
3. Of feelings or thoughts, strongly focused and deeply felt; ardent or passionate.
   - Simple: Used about feelings or thoughts that are very strong and deeply felt.
   - _The two scientists shared an intense curiosity about the deep ocean._
   - _An intense grief settled over the town after the news arrived._
4. Of a person, highly emotional, earnest or passionate in temperament.
   - Simple: Describes a person who shows very strong feelings about things.
   - _She came across as intense in the interview, leaning forward and answering every question at length._
   - _Friends described the poet as intense, prone to long silences and sudden bursts of feeling._
5. Drawn tight and under tension; figuratively strained, stressed, or tense.
   - Simple: Stretched tight, or full of strain and stress.
   - _Negotiations grew intense in the final hour, with neither side willing to give ground._
   - _The atmosphere in the courtroom was intense as the jury filed back in._

## Origin

This word came into Late Middle English from Old French intense, or directly from Latin intēnsus ("strained, stretched tight; intense"), the past participle of intendō ("to stretch out, strain"), formed from in- ("within") plus tendō ("to stretch"), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *tend- ("to extend, stretch").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/intense (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).