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:

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pensum m (plural pensums)

1. (archaic) pensum (at school); lines (UK)
2. chore
   • 1943, Antoine 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.