LANGUISH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does languish mean? 

• LANGUISH (verb)
  The verb LANGUISH has 3 senses:

1. lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief

2. have a desire for something or someone who is not present

3. become feeble

  Familiarity information: LANGUISH used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LANGUISH (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they languish    ... he / she / it languishes   
Past simple: languished   
Past participle: languished   
-ing form: languishing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

languish; pine away; waste

Context example:

After her husband died, she just pined away

Hypernyms (to "languish" is one way to...):

weaken (become weaker)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s

Derivation:

languisher (a person who languishes)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Have a desire for something or someone who is not present

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

ache; languish; pine; yearn; yen

Context example:

I am pining for my lover

Hypernyms (to "languish" is one way to...):

hanker; long; yearn (desire strongly or persistently)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "languish"):

die (languish as with love or desire)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s PP

Sense 3

Meaning:

Become feeble

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Synonyms:

fade; languish

Context example:

The prisoner has been languishing for years in the dungeon

Hypernyms (to "languish" is one way to...):

degenerate; deteriorate; devolve; drop (grow worse)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

languisher (a person who languishes)

 Context examples 

He had gone to the roots of White Fang's nature, and with kindness touched to life potencies that had languished and well-nigh perished.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I am myself a soldier's daughter, she added, casting a somewhat languishing glance at John, and my heart ever goes out to a brave man.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A few other topics of general interest were introduced by Mr. Brooke and wet-blanketed by Mrs. Brooke, and conversation languished.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

This was a full-blown, very plump damsel, fair as waxwork, with handsome and regular features, languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

When the universe notices that a situation is languishing and is unproductive, it will pull you out of it in the blink of an eye.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Sometimes they were the expressive eyes of Henry, languishing in death, the dark orbs nearly covered by the lids and the long black lashes that fringed them; sometimes it was the watery, clouded eyes of the monster, as I first saw them in my chamber at Ingolstadt.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

But the reading languished.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In revolving these matters, while she undressed, it suddenly struck her as not unlikely that she might that morning have passed near the very spot of this unfortunate woman's confinement—might have been within a few paces of the cell in which she languished out her days; for what part of the abbey could be more fitted for the purpose than that which yet bore the traces of monastic division?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

He is an excellent young man, and will suit Harriet exactly; it will be an 'Exactly so,' as he says himself; but he does sigh and languish, and study for compliments rather more than I could endure as a principal.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)