- present participle of pine.
pining
Americanadjective
-
suffering with or expressing longing or yearning for someone or something.
Exposing her vulnerability and loneliness, the poet addresses her country as would a pining woman in a letter to her beloved in a distant land.
Her pining vocals on these tracks throb with the loneliness and emptiness of fresh separation.
-
failing gradually in health or vitality, especially from grief, regret, or longing.
The day after the altercation he took sick, and continued in a pining and languishing condition till his death, which soon ensued.
noun
-
pinings
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pining
First recorded in 1200–50; pin(e) 2 ( def. ) + -ing 2 ( def. ) for the adjective senses; pin(e) 2 ( def. ) + -ing 1 ( def. ) for the noun sense
Vocabulary lists containing pining
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:
Noah quit the Washington Post to start a politics web site, while still pining for Chaya, who worked in the Obama administration.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
She’s a poet, and I think she really understands girlhood — the pining and the wanting to be accepted — and she does it in such a beautiful and majestic way.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026
The lack of a son’s POV makes Boy Mom pining both performative and disturbingly real.
From Salon ● Jun. 4, 2026
Investors have been pining to own SpaceX for years.
From Barron's ● May 24, 2026
The boys were ready, were proud to be able to help out the U.S. of A. and whatnot, although the chubby girlfriends and mothers admitted they’d be pining for their men.
From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx
Through countless cosmos, breakups, musings and pinings, we felt we knew her – well, the characters she helped craft anyway.
From US News ● Jan. 13, 2014
I confess that I have no heart pinings for such nonconformists as Dr. Mary Walker or any other individual who believes that eccentricity, serving no purpose but to make one conspicuous, is interesting.
From A String of Amber Beads by Martha Everts Holden
I've seen your sighings and oglings, your pinings and sinkings.
From Sophia A Romance by Stanley John Weyman
What hearts at war with themselves! what unceasing regrets! what pinings after the past! what long and beautiful years devoted to a moral grave, by a momentary rashness, an impulse, a disappointment!
From The Pilgrims of the Rhine by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
Know, then, oh mortal Mardian! that when translated hither, thou wilt but put off lowly temporal pinings, for angel and eternal aspirations.
From Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II by Herman Melville
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.
