pensum

Borrowed from Latin pensum. Doublet of peso.

pensum (plural pensums)

1. (dated) A task or imposition set as a school punishment.
   • 1955, Samuel Beckett, translated by Patrick Bowles, Molloy:

     You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it wept.

Borrowed from Latin pēnsum.

• IPA^(key): /pɛnsɔm/, [ˈpʰɛnsɔm]

pensum n (singular definite pensummet, plural indefinite pensa)

1. syllabus, curriculum
2. task, assignment
3. examination requirements

Borrowed from Latin pēnsum. Doublet of poids, which was inherited.

• IPA^(key): /pɛ̃.sɔm/

• Audio:

  (file)

pensum m (plural pensums)

1. (archaic) pensum (at school); lines (UK)
2. chore

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

Neuter of past participle of pendō.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈpen.sum/, [ˈpẽːs̠ʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈpen.sum/, [ˈpɛnsum]

pēnsum n (genitive pēnsī); second declension

1. allotment, portion, weight (of wool measured out to a slave to spin in a day)
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 2.743:

     lūmen ad exiguum famulae data pēnsa trahēbant

     By a dim light the handmaids were spinning their given allotments of wool.

2. work quota, a day’s work
3. task, job, duty, assignment, engagement

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• pēnsō

Via Vulgar Latin *pēsum:

• “pensum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pensum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pensum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• pensum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “pensum”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers

Borrowed from Latin pēnsum.

• IPA^(key): /pɛnsʉm/, [ˈpʰɛnsʉm]

pensum n (definite singular pensumet, indefinite plural pensa or pensumer, definite plural pensaene or pensuma or pensumene)

1. syllabus, curriculum
2. task, assignment
3. examination requirements

• “pensum” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “pensum” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

Borrowed from Latin pēnsum.

pensum n (definite singular pensumet, indefinite plural pensum, definite plural pensuma)

1. syllabus, curriculum
2. task, assignment
3. examination requirements

Historical inflection of pensum indefinite singular definite singular indefinite plural definite plural 1920 pensum pensumet pensa pensa 1981 pensa, pensum pensa, pensuma [pensumi] 1982 pensa, pensaa [pensai], pensuma [pensumi] 2012 (current) pensum pensumet pensum pensuma Forms in italics are currently considered non-standard. Forms in [brackets] were official, but considered second-tier.

• “pensum” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.