languor
Americannoun
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languors
plural
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lack of energy or vitality; sluggishness.
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lack of spirit or interest; listlessness; stagnation.
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physical weakness or faintness.
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emotional softness or tenderness.
noun
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physical or mental laziness or weariness
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a feeling of dreaminess and relaxation
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oppressive silence or stillness
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of languor
1250–1300; < Latin ( see languish, -or 1); replacing Middle English langour sickness, woe < Old French < Latin
Explanation
When you are sick or heartbroken and too tired to get out of bed, the listlessness you feel is called languor. It's sluggishness and slowness, but usually with cause. The more commonly used word languish is closely related to languor. If you are languishing or becoming weaker, you are showing languor. Remember that languor implies a heaviness or slowness where there should be lightness or speed. There is no time for languor if you have an exam tomorrow, and you are just beginning to study now. And, a 100 degree day with 70% humidity can inspire languor in just about anyone.
Vocabulary lists containing languor
100 SAT Words Beginning with "J," "K," and "L"
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Pride and Prejudice
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The Awakening
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
First published in Korea in 2015 and recently translated into English by Frances Cha, “Watermelon Pool” unfolds with all the languor of a long summer day.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
But despite reminding those who mention the Jedi and its protocols that the Order no longer exists, this Ahsoka certainly behaves like one to the point of almost verging into languor.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2023
Not coincidentally pro football only took off as a national sport during the late ’50s and ’60s when it embraced television, which marketed football’s brutality as a counterweight to baseball’s languor.
From New York Times ● Jan. 9, 2023
The only thing vaguely French about it was the languor; never in my life have I spent so many consecutive hours lying down.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2022
The bailiff unlocked Richard’s shackles and he stood, moving with a defeated, dreamlike languor.
From "The 57 Bus" by Dashka Slater
And with this final season coming in two eight-episode tranches, I’m hopeful that we won’t have to worry about the show getting lost in its own languors this time around.
From Slate ● Jul. 13, 2012
Alas, Stern makes a better case for the middle-aged languors of Cambridge than for the pleasures of Cynthia.
From Time Magazine Archive
They meet again nearly two decades later amid the summer languors of the Riviera.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was no picayune thing of languors, but a grande passion, a robust, full-stomached affair.
From Time Magazine Archive
Something that is the enemy of sloth and lies and the soft languors of love.
From An Ocean Tramp by William McFee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
