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prolong

verb

Simple meaning

Lengthen in time.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pruhlawng

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

pɹəˈlɔŋ

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. Lengthen in time; cause to be or last longer

  2. transitive

    To lengthen in time; to extend the duration of.

  3. Lengthen or extend in duration or space

  4. transitive

    To extend in space or length.

  5. intransitive

    To become longer; lengthen.

  6. transitive

    To put off to a distant time; to postpone.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Primarily written

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Lengthen in time; cause to be or last longer

Used this way, prolong 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 prolong

  • “We prolonged our stay.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

prolong lifethus prolong

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • prolongationnounDerived noun

    The act of prolonging something.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • prolonged interrogationnounCompound term

    A form of psychological torture inflicted by questioning the victim for hours.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: lengthen in time

extenddraw out

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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.