adjective
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characterized by or producing languor
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another word for languid
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of languorous
Explanation
To be languorous is to be dreamy, lackadaisical, and languid. When someone is languorous, she’s lying around, daydreaming, possibly fanning herself lazily. It’s a little self-indulgent. Languorous refers to a certain kind of mood everyone gets in sometimes — when you'd rather lie around thinking than doing work or having fun. When you're languorous, you're tired and maybe a little depressed. Things can be languorous, too — like a hot, languorous summer afternoon or a languorous song that’s slow and mournful. If you've ever lounged in bed for an hour after you were supposed to get up, you’re familiar with feeling languorous.
Vocabulary lists containing languorous
Grade 11, List 5
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This Week In Culture: April 5–11, 2020
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Never Let Me Go
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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.
Mr. Miller, a writer of great narrative authority, specializes in historical thrillers that move at a languorous pace.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2025
It was an emotional performance, with Balsom producing a beautifully rounded tone during the slower, languorous movements before switching into high gear for the dazzling pyrotechnics of the closing Rondo.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2025
The rhymed verse the characters speak in doesn’t at all hinder them from expressing themselves colloquially, in idioms that sound better with a languorous Southern lilt.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 19, 2024
Also, Vanya is hopelessly in love with the old man’s exquisitely languorous young wife, who, reasonably enough, finds the moper pathetic.
From New York Times ● Apr. 24, 2024
The other boys were all moving around the field in that deliberately languorous way they have when they’re warming up, but Tommy, in his excitement, seemed already to be going full pelt.
From "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro
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.
