languish
[lang-gwish]
- to be or become weak or feeble; droop; fade.
- to lose vigor and vitality.
- to undergo neglect or experience prolonged inactivity; suffer hardship and distress: to languish in prison for ten years.
- to be subjected to delay or disregard; be ignored: a petition that languished on the warden's desk for a year.
- to pine with desire or longing.
- to assume an expression of tender, sentimental melancholy.
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- the act or state of languishing.
- a tender, melancholy look or expression.
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Origin of languish
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
dwindlefaintwitherdeterioratefailsufferrotweakendespondebbhungersighyearnpinedeclinebroodrepinelongfadewasteExamples from the Web for languish
Contemporary Examples
Common sense, uncontroversial ideas tend to languish when attention has moved elsewhere.
Some of the authors most revered by their contemporaries now languish in relative obscurity.
Critical journalists continue to languish in prison and inside the courtrooms the breadth of the clampdown is on full display.
They see people just like them being elevated quickly to power while they languish, and they become envious.
They will be abandoned to languish and rot in “gulags” in Russia.
Historical Examples
No, Plautus did not allow his public to languish for want of noise.
The Dramatic Values in PlautusWilton Wallace Blancke
He regards them as vermin to be left to languish and die of their festering wounds.
Captain BloodRafael Sabatini
Supposing a frog were to come along and languish for my kind of legs.
The Adventures of Maya the BeeWaldemar Bonsels
They are brought from Shanghai, and, as a rule, they languish and die in a few months.
The Philippine IslandsJohn Foreman
It will languish and perish in the dry sunlight of open discussion.
The Unsolved Riddle of Social JusticeStephen Leacock
languish
- to lose or diminish in strength or energy
- (often foll by for) to be listless with desire; pine
- to suffer deprivation, hardship, or neglectto languish in prison
- to put on a tender, nostalgic, or melancholic expression
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Word Origin
C14 languishen, from Old French languiss-, stem of languir, ultimately from Latin languēre
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for languish
v.
early 14c., "fail in strength, exhibit signs of approaching death," from languiss-, present participle stem of Old French languir "be listless, pine, grieve, fall ill," from Vulgar Latin *languire, from Latin languere "be weak or faint" (see lax). Weaker sense "be lovesick, grieve, lament, grow faint," is from mid-14c. Related: Languished; languishing.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper