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Languish   /lˈæŋgwɪʃ/   Listen
verb
Languish  v. i.  (past & past part. languished; pres. part. languishing)  
1.
To become languid or weak; to lose strength or animation; to be or become dull, feeble or spiritless; to pine away; to linger in a weak or deteriorating condition; to wither or fade. "We... do languish of such diseases." "Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life." "For the fields of Heshbon languish."
2.
To assume an expression of weariness or tender grief, appealing for sympathy.
3.
To be neglected and unattended to; as, the proposal languished on the director's desk for months.
Synonyms: To pine; wither; fade; droop; faint.



Languish  v. i.  To cause to droop or pine. (Obs.)



noun
Languish  n.  See Languishment. (Obs. or Poetic) "What, of death, too, That rids our dogs of languish?" "And the blue languish of soft Allia's eye."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Languish" Quotes from Famous Books



... she may make thee tremble. Fear to be guilty, then thou may'st dissemble. Think when she reads, her mother letters sent her: Let him go forth known, that unknown did enter. 20 Let him go see her though she do not languish, And then report her sick and full of anguish. If long she stays, to think the time more short, Lay down thy forehead in thy lap to snort. Inquire not what with Isis may be done, Nor fear lest she to the theatres run. Knowing her scapes, thine honour shall increase; ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... little sewing for the latter. Their sign was—"Children taught to read and work here," and their furniture the cap and bells, the rod in pickle, and a corner for dunces. The finishing stroke was seen in the parlour of the inn, or the farm-house, in the shape of needlework as a samplar;—"Lydia Languish, her work, done at —— school, in the year of our Lord, 1809." Such were the schools in country places then in existence, the little ones doing nothing. In after-life, I thought a remedy was required and might be found, and therefore set about working it out. How ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... Ferd shall tell of all the rest that he has put somewhere, I know not. His poor brain cannot carry out the plan, and to me it avails no more. Ay de mi! But Solano—beware. Of some things he knows, and of more he suspects, is it not? Ah! I weary, I languish, I die, I, Antonio Bernal, heir to wealth so boundless. It was so fine a plan—so most wonderful and simple. The fools, how they feared! Oh! the laughter I had! and the wild, rides on my so splendid ghost horse, yes. ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... he added at last. 'He would have had, to be sure, to languish his whole life long in an awful prison! At any rate, he is out of suffering now! He is better off now! Such was bound to be his ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... though it lie very close. I ramble indiscreetly and tumultuously; my style and my wit wander at the same rate. He must fool it a little who would not be deemed wholly a fool, say both the precepts, and, still more, the examples of our masters. A thousand poets flag and languish after a prosaic manner; but the best old prose (and I strew it here up and down indifferently for verse) shines throughout with the lustre, vigour, and boldness of poetry, and not without some air of its fury. And certainly prose ought to have the pre-eminence ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne


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