LANGUOR

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does languor mean? 

• LANGUOR (noun)
  The noun LANGUOR has 4 senses:

1. a relaxed comfortable feeling

2. oppressively still air

3. a feeling of lack of interest or energy

4. inactivity; showing an unusual lack of energy

  Familiarity information: LANGUOR used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LANGUOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A relaxed comfortable feeling

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

dreaminess; languor

Hypernyms ("languor" is a kind of...):

easiness; relaxation (a feeling of refreshing tranquility and an absence of tension or worry)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Oppressively still air

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Context example:

Summer shows all the languor of a hot, breezeless day as the dancer lazily brushes her hand over her brow

Hypernyms ("languor" is a kind of...):

air current; current of air; wind (air moving (sometimes with considerable force) from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A feeling of lack of interest or energy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

languor; lassitude; listlessness

Hypernyms ("languor" is a kind of...):

apathy (an absence of emotion or enthusiasm)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Inactivity; showing an unusual lack of energy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

flatness; languor; lethargy; phlegm; sluggishness

Context example:

the general appearance of sluggishness alarmed his friends

Hypernyms ("languor" is a kind of...):

inactiveness; inactivity; inertia (a disposition to remain inactive or inert)

Derivation:

languorous (lacking spirit or liveliness)

 Context examples 

Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly that I felt the palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He steeled himself to keep above the suffocating languor that lapped like a rising tide through all the wells of his being.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Yet, in spite of all this, Anne had reason to believe that she had moments only of languor and depression, to hours of occupation and enjoyment.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

“Bertram,” said Crawford, some time afterwards, taking the opportunity of a little languor in the game, “I have never told you what happened to me yesterday in my ride home.”

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

There was a languor, a want of spirits, a want of union, which could not be got over.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Besides which, she is so charmingly ugly, relapsing into languor.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

They repulsed every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

The rocks of the Spy-glass re-echoed it a score of times; the whole troop of marsh-birds rose again, darkening heaven, with a simultaneous whirr; and long after that death yell was still ringing in my brain, silence had re-established its empire, and only the rustle of the redescending birds and the boom of the distant surges disturbed the languor of the afternoon.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Catherine said no more, and, with an endeavour to do right, applied to her work; but, after a few minutes, sunk again, without knowing it herself, into languor and listlessness, moving herself in her chair, from the irritation of weariness, much oftener than she moved her needle.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Then he took down from the rack the old and oily clay pipe, which was to him as a counsellor, and, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with the thick blue cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in his face.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)