linger

Etymology

It is northern inherited from Middle English lengeren (“to dwell, remain”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} formed from Middle English lengen (“to tarry, prolong”) + -eren, a frequentative.^{[2][3][6][7][8]} The base is from Old English lengan (“to prolong, delay, lengthen”),^{[2][7][9][10][11]} from Proto-Germanic *langijaną (“to make long”),^[2][7] itself from *langaz (“long”), the source of long.^[2][12][7] Hoad and Ayto derive the Middle English base instead from Old Norse lengja (“to lengthen”), which Ayto says was borrowed in the 10th century,^[12][13] and the MED relates the frequentative to the comparative lenger (“longer”).^[14] Its cognates include Old Frisian lendza, Dutch lengen (“to lengthen”), Old High German lengan (“to draw out”) and German längen.^[2][7][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

To dwell, live or stay in a place: before 1300, in the Cursor Mundi.^[6][14][7] Etymonline dates it about 1300.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Ayto sums up the change: "lengthen" had passed through "prolong" to "delay" before linger was formed, so that to linger is to stay longer than one should.^[13] The first sense, simply to dwell, died out in Middle English;^[6][15] the modern sense, to stay on or loiter, as if unwilling to leave, is first recorded in Palsgrave's French grammar of 1530.^[6][7] From the 1530s it was also used of a sick person who stays alive, in Johnson's words "to remain long in languor and pain".^[6][16] From 1548 it was used for hesitating or dawdling.^[6] A transitive use, to protract or delay something, ran from 1543 to 1633;^[6] Johnson (1755) already marked it "out of use", quoting Shakespeare.^[16] Since Goldsmith (1764) the verb has been used of things that are slow to pass away, such as a memory or a smell,^[6] and since 1835 of dwelling on a subject.^[6] In Yorkshire and the southern and eastern counties of England, to linger after something was to long for it.^[17]

Timeline

• before 1300 – to dwell, abide (obsolete).^[6][14]
• 1530 – to stay on in a place, loiter, tarry.^[6][7]
• before 1535 – to stay alive while sick or suffering.^[6]
• 1543 – transitive, to protract or delay (obsolete by 1633).^[6]
• 1548 – to hesitate, dawdle.^[6]
• 1550 – linger out, to draw out or waste time.^[6]
• 1764 – of things, to be slow to pass away.^[6]
• 1826 – to go along slowly.^[6]
• 1835 – to dwell on a subject.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stay somewhere longer than usual or expected, especially because one is unwilling to leave; to loiter or tarry: The guests lingered on the porch long after midnight.^[3][5][6]
2. To be slow to disappear; to persist, especially in the mind: The smell of smoke lingered in the curtains.^[5][6][3]
3. To remain alive for some time while growing weaker, before death.^[5][3][6]
4. To spend a long time over something; to dwell on it: She lingered over her coffee.^[6][3]
5. To be slow to act; to hesitate or procrastinate.^[5][6]
6. To move slowly; to saunter.^[5][6]
7. linger out or away: to draw out or pass time slowly or idly.^[6][15]
8. (obsolete, 1543–1633) To prolong or put off something.^[6][16]

Word family

• lingerer
• lingeringly
• outlinger
• overlinger

Related words

• long
• length
• lengthen
• longer

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
6. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ a b c 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)
15. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)