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 (France (Lyon)):

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• Audio (France (Somain)):

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pensum m (plural pensums)

1. (archaic) pensum (at school); lines (UK)
   • 1857, Gustave Flaubert, chapter 1, in Madame Bovary […] ‎^[1], first part:

     Cependant, sous la pluie des pensums, l’ordre peu à peu se rétablit dans la classe, et le professeur, parvenu à saisir le nom de Charles Bovary, se l’étant fait dicter, épeler et relire, commanda tout de suite au pauvre diable d’aller s’asseoir sur le banc de paresse, au pied de la chaire. Il se mit en mouvement, mais, avant de partir, hésita.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. chore
   • 1943, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, chapter XVII, in Le petit prince [The Little Prince], New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, page 67:

     Mais ne perdez pas votre temps à ce pensum. C'est inutile.

     But do not waste your time on this extra task. It is unnecessary.

• “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): [ˈpẽː.sũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈpɛn.sum]

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

• “pensum” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Learned borrowing from Latin pensum. Doublet of peso.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛn.sum/
• Rhymes: -ɛnsum
• Syllabification: pen‧sum

pensum n

1. teaching load; quota (set number of workhours for a teacher or a lecturer)
2. (literary) quota (certain amount of something)

• pensum in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• pensum in Polish dictionaries at PWN