languish
VerbOpen English WordNet
Verb (3)languished, languishing
- lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief“After her husband died, she just pined away”Synonyms: pine awaywasteMore general weaken
- have a desire for something or someone who is not present“She ached for a cigarette”“I am pining for my lover”Synonyms: acheyearnyenpineMore general hanker, longMore specific die
- become feeble“The prisoner has been languishing for years in the dungeon”Synonyms: fadeMore general devolve, deteriorate
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: OE. languishen, languissen, F. languir, L. languere; cf. Gr. … to slacken, … slack, Icel. lakra to lag behind; prob. akin to E. lag, lax, and perh. to E. slack. See -ish.
1. To become languid or weak; to lose strength or animation; to be or become dull, feeble or spiritless; to pine away; to linger in a weak or deteriorating condition; to wither or fade.
We... do languish of such diseases.— 2 Esdras viii. 31.
Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life.— Alexander Pope
For the fields of Heshbon languish.— Is. xvi. 8.
2. To assume an expression of weariness or tender grief, appealing for sympathy. Alfred Tennyson
3. To be neglected and unattended to; as, the proposal languished on the director's desk for months.
Synonyms: To pine; wither; fade; droop; faint.
To cause to droop or pine. obsolete William Shakespeare John Dryden
See Languishment. Obs. or Poetic
What, of death, too, That rids our dogs of languish?— William Shakespeare
And the blue languish of soft Allia's eye.— Alexander Pope
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54 · with additions: GCIDE editors