languish Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief
    waste; pine away.
    • After her husband died, she just pined away
  2. verb have a desire for something or someone who is not present
    ache; yearn; pine; yen.
    • She ached for a cigarette
    • I am pining for my lover
  3. verb become feeble
    fade.
    • The prisoner has be languishing for years in the dungeon

WordNet

Lan"guish intransitive verb
Etymology
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.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Languished ; present participle & verbal noun Languishing
Definitions
  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.
Lan"guish intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To cause to drp or pine. Obs. Shak. Dryden.
Lan"guish noun
Definitions
  1. 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.

Webster 1913