languish

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English languishen, also languissen,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman languiss-, the lengthened stem of languir (“to suffer illness, grow faint, pine”),^{[4][5][6][7][8]} recorded in Old French from about 1130 and in Anglo-Norman from about 1140.^[4] The verb comes from Vulgar Latin *languiō,^[5][6][9][3] which the OED finds as post-classical Latin in the 6th century,^[4] an alteration, with a change of conjugation, of Latin langueō (“to be faint or weak”).^[4][8][10] The Latin verb is related to laxus (“loose, slack”), the source of lax,^{[4][11][8][12]} and goes back, by reconstruction, to Proto-Indo-European *sleg- (“to be slack, be languid”).^[6][10] Weekley relates it ultimately to slack.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

To weaken, wither or grow faint, of a person, animal or plant: before 1325, in the Statutes of the Realm.^[4] Barnhart finds it before 1325 in the Cursor Mundi,^[5] Etymonline in the early 14th century,^[6] and Hoad and Dictionary.com put it as early as the 13th century.^[11][14]

Semantic evolution

Old French already used the verb both for failing health and for pining with love,^[4] and Anglo-Norman had the same range, from protracted illness to love-sickness.^[7] English took both early: Etymonline dates "be lovesick, grieve" to the mid-14th century,^[6] the OED to before 1382, in the Wycliffite Bible,^[4] and Chaucer used it for pining as well as for growing weak.^[15] To languish in a place, under oppressive conditions, appears in 1489, in Caxton,^[4] and had a model in French of the late 13th century.^[4] An activity or emotion could languish, or grow slack, from about 1510 in the OED, 1626 in Barnhart, who cites Bacon.^[4][5] Failure to make progress follows in 1652.^[4] In the early 18th century it came to mean putting on a languid, tender expression,^[16][4] and the word was aptly used for the name of Lydia Languish in Sheridan's The Rivals (1775).^[16] Johnson (1755) gave a noun for "soft appearance", quoting Pope on "the blue languish of soft Allia's eye".^[17]

Timeline

• before 1325 – to decline in health, weaken, wither.^[4][5]
• before 1382 – to droop in spirits, to pine with love or grief.^[4]
• c. 1384 – noun, an illness (obsolete by 1450).^[4]
• 1489 – to live in an oppressive or dispiriting condition.^[4]
• c. 1510 – of an activity or emotion, to grow slack.^[4]
• 1567 – to waste away with longing for something.^[4]
• 1652 – to fail to make progress.^[4]
• 1712 – noun, a tender or amorous look (obsolete by 1864).^[4]
• 1714 – to adopt a languid look or pose.^[4][16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lose strength or vitality; to droop or wither: The seedlings languished in the dry soil.^[18][3][4]
2. To live or be kept in a miserable or neglected state: The papers languished in a county archive for decades.^[18][4]
3. To fail to make progress; to lose vigour or intensity.^[4][3]
4. (archaic) To pine with love or grief, or to long for something.^[4][18]
5. (archaic) To put on a tender, melancholy expression.^[4][18]

Noun

1. (archaic) The act or state of languishing.^[3][4]
2. (archaic) A tender, languishing look.^[3][4][17]

Word family

• languisher
• languishingly
• languishment

Related words

• languid
• languor
• languorous
• lax
• slack

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins