languish
verb
Simple meaning
To pine away in longing for something.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
langgwishSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlæŋɡwɪʃ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Become feeble
“The prisoner has been languishing for years in the dungeon.”
intransitive
To pine away in longing for something; to have low spirits, especially from lovesickness.
intransitive
To live in miserable or disheartening conditions.
intransitive
To be neglected; to make little progress, be unsuccessful.
intransitive
To lose strength and become weak; to be in a state of weakness or sickness.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To pine away in longing for something; to have low spirits, especially from lovesickness.
Used this way, languish is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use languish
- “The prisoner has been languishing for years in the dungeon.”verb
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.