languish
Americanverb (used without object)
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languishes,
present (3rd person singular)
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languished,
past participle, past
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languishing
present participle
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to be or become weak or feeble; droop; fade.
Whether the plant thrives or languishes and dies is heavily dependent on the climate.
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to lose vigor and vitality.
Though she was once full of energy, her illness had caused her to languish.
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to undergo neglect or experience prolonged inactivity; suffer hardship and distress.
to languish in prison for ten years.
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to be subjected to delay or disregard; be ignored.
a petition that languished on the warden's desk for a year.
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to pine with desire or longing.
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to assume an expression of tender, sentimental melancholy.
noun
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Archaic. the act or state of being neglected, losing vigor, or becoming weak.
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Archaic. a tender, melancholy look or expression.
verb
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to lose or diminish in strength or energy
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(often foll by for) to be listless with desire; pine
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to suffer deprivation, hardship, or neglect
to languish in prison
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to put on a tender, nostalgic, or melancholic expression
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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languishsimple
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languishessimple
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have languishedperfect
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has languishedperfect
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am languishingprogressive
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are languishingprogressive
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is languishingprogressive
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have been languishingperfect progressive
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has been languishingperfect progressive
Past
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languishedsimple
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had languishedperfect
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was languishingprogressive
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were languishingprogressive
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had been languishingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of languish
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Middle French languiss-, long stem of languir, from Latin languēre “to languish”; akin to laxus lax; see -ish 2
Explanation
To languish is to become pitiful or weak because you're sick, in love, or stuck somewhere. A prisoner might languish in jail, longing for her freedom. Languish, like languid, is from the Latin word languere which means "to be weak or faint." Your houseplants might languish in a dark dry corner. A Romantic poet might languish on a velvet couch with the back of her hand to her forehead. People in operas love to languish: The main character in La Traviata, Violetta, languishes from longing and eventually tuberculosis.
Vocabulary lists containing languish
"Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963)
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Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech (1963)
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Refugee
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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:
He also says that, while IBM itself prepurchased $600 million in hardware to get ahead of price increases, it isn’t financially prudent for companies to continue buying hardware, only to have it languish in inventory.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
Burke was only arrested three months ago, and murder cases often languish in L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Places like Wigan - in Greater Manchester, Burnham's stronghold - often languish next to the bigger cities in whose shadow they sit.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
Abrupt, unwelcome occurrences scar our autonomy and cripple our illusion of independence; the question of what went wrong falls on our shoulders, another loop to languish inside.
From Salon ● May 30, 2026
Most academic analyses of this sort tend to languish, unread, on a dusty library shelf.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
Too much conservation work currently relies on philanthropists' cash and devoted volunteers, those in the sector say, and much more languishes on the to-do list due to a lack of money.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
Official readouts and state media reports have not said whether Xi and Kim discussed North Korea's nuclear weapons development, for which Pyongyang languishes under international sanctions.
From Barron's ● Jun. 9, 2026
Tortora, meanwhile, languishes in squalid jail cells and a country with only a casual regard for habeas corpus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 19, 2026
Jenner is likely taking a significant financial hit on the property as it languishes on the market.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 17, 2026
Even the moral purpose faints and languishes, and charity ceases to be athletic, as elegance of form is substituted for pith of resolution.
From Recollections and Impressions 1822-1890 by Octavius Brooks Frothingham
Three stop-start decades followed as silver prices languished.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
Former state controller Betty Yee — who languished at the bottom of the polls — held on for a few more weeks before calling it quits.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026
His Palm Beach compound languished for six years and required $22 million in price cuts before it was sold, while his sprawling Oyster Bay compound on Long Island was recently taken off the market.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 3, 2026
"UMG's stock price has languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business," Ackman said in a statement when the bid was announced.
From Barron's ● May 29, 2026
Now it languished on a high shelf, under a box full of cash register tapes.
From "Typical American" by Gish Jen
Former attorneys in the division worry that other preexisting cases are languishing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 19, 2026
After languishing in development hell under Stanley Kubrick for two decades, the notoriously intense auteur deferred the project to Spielberg, believing he would be the right fit to tell such a complex yet tender story.
From Salon ● Jun. 28, 2026
Meanwhile, Alec and Hilaria Baldwin’s Amagansett compound has been languishing on the market since 2022, when they listed it for $29 million.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 3, 2026
Bloom, meanwhile, was languishing below its 2018 IPO price at the end of May last year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026
Maybe all hospitals should import groups of rabble-rousing punk rockers to kick-start the languishing patients’ hearts.
From "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman
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.
