having the component parts closely compacted together; crowded or compact:
a dense forest; dense population.
2.
stupid; slow-witted; dull.
3.
intense; extreme:
dense ignorance.
4.
relatively opaque; transmitting little light, as a photographic negative, optical glass, or color.
5.
difficult to understand or follow because of being closely packed with ideas or complexities of style:
a dense philosophical essay.
6.
Mathematics. of or pertaining to a subset of a topological space in which every neighborhood of every point in the space contains at least one point of the subset.
Origin
1590-1600; < Latindēnsus thick; cognate with Greekdasýs
Related forms
densely, adverb
denseness, noun
nondenseness, noun
superdense, adjective
ultradense, adjective
Synonyms
1. congested, crammed, teeming; impenetrable.
Examples from the web for dense
The dura mater is a thick and dense inelastic membrane.
These dense coastal forests harbor a broad cross-section of wildlife species.
The dense treetop canopy plunges day into night as we enter the rain forest.
The ultra-dense remains of the galaxy's youngest supernova are full of bizarre quantum matter.
The text makes for dense reading: the spotty narrative, abrupt time shifts and herky-jerky conversation can be confusing.
Vegetables with a dense, firm texture hold up best when frozen.
Stunningly broad in conception and written in a dense, convoluted style, this work will swamp most general readers.
The fossil also has dense limb bones that would have weighed it down in water.
Charles Dickens is too dense for bedtime reading.
Spruce and hemlock form a dense green canopy above us.
British Dictionary definitions for dense
dense
/dɛns/
adjective
1.
thickly crowded or closely set: a dense crowd
2.
thick; impenetrable: a dense fog
3.
(physics) having a high density
4.
stupid; dull; obtuse
5.
(of a photographic negative) having many dark or exposed areas
6.
(of an optical glass, colour, etc) transmitting little or no light
Derived Forms
densely, adverb denseness, noun
Word Origin
C15: from Latin densus thick; related to Greek dasus thickly covered with hair or leaves
Word Origin and History for dense
adj.
early 15c., from Middle French dense and directly from Latin densus "thick, crowded; cloudy," perhaps from PIE root *dens- "dense, thick" (cf. Greek dasus "hairy, shaggy"). Sense of "stupid" is first recorded 1822.