Definition: languish

Search dictionary for

Source: WordNet (r) 1.7 

languish
     v 1: lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief; "After her
          husband died, she just pined away" [syn: pine away, waste]
     2: have a yen for [syn: long, ache, yearn, yen, pine]
     3: become feeble; "The prisoner has be languishing for years in
        the dungeon" [syn: fade]

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 

Languish \Lan"guish\, v. i.
   To cause to droop or pine. [Obs.] --Shak. --Dryden.
Languish \Lan"guish\, n.
   See Languishiment. [Obs. or Poetic]

         What, of death, too, That rids our dogs of languish ?
                                                  --Shak.

         And the blue languish of soft Allia's eye. --Pope.
Languish \Lan"guish\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Languished; p. pr. &
   vb. n. Languishing.] [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 wither or fade.

            We . . . do languish of such diseases. --2 Esdras
                                                  viii. 31.

            Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, And let me
            landguish into life.                  --Pope.

            For the fields of Heshbon languish.   --Is. xvi. 8.

   2. To assume an expression of weariness or tender grief,
      appealing for sympathy. --Tennyson.

   Syn: To pine; wither; fade; droop; faint.