languish
Americanverb (used without object)
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languishes,
present (3rd person singular)
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languished,
past participle, past
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languishing
present participle
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to be or become weak or feeble; droop; fade.
Whether the plant thrives or languishes and dies is heavily dependent on the climate.
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to lose vigor and vitality.
Though she was once full of energy, her illness had caused her to languish.
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to undergo neglect or experience prolonged inactivity; suffer hardship and distress.
to languish in prison for ten years.
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to be subjected to delay or disregard; be ignored.
a petition that languished on the warden's desk for a year.
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to pine with desire or longing.
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to assume an expression of tender, sentimental melancholy.
noun
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Archaic. the act or state of being neglected, losing vigor, or becoming weak.
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Archaic. a tender, melancholy look or expression.
verb
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to lose or diminish in strength or energy
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(often foll by for) to be listless with desire; pine
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to suffer deprivation, hardship, or neglect
to languish in prison
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to put on a tender, nostalgic, or melancholic expression
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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languishsimple
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languishessimple
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have languishedperfect
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has languishedperfect
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am languishingprogressive
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are languishingprogressive
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is languishingprogressive
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have been languishingperfect progressive
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has been languishingperfect progressive
Past
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languishedsimple
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had languishedperfect
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was languishingprogressive
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were languishingprogressive
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had been languishingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of languish
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Middle French languiss-, long stem of languir, from Latin languēre “to languish”; akin to laxus lax; see -ish 2
Explanation
To languish is to become pitiful or weak because you're sick, in love, or stuck somewhere. A prisoner might languish in jail, longing for her freedom. Languish, like languid, is from the Latin word languere which means "to be weak or faint." Your houseplants might languish in a dark dry corner. A Romantic poet might languish on a velvet couch with the back of her hand to her forehead. People in operas love to languish: The main character in La Traviata, Violetta, languishes from longing and eventually tuberculosis.
Vocabulary lists containing languish
"Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963)
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Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech (1963)
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Refugee
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The disputed settlement emerged from a 1985 lawsuit over the fate of 15-year-old Jenny Flores, a Salvadoran refugee who was picked up by federal immigration enforcement and left to languish in detention in Pasadena.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
He also says that, while IBM itself prepurchased $600 million in hardware to get ahead of price increases, it isn’t financially prudent for companies to continue buying hardware, only to have it languish in inventory.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
Places like Wigan - in Greater Manchester, Burnham's stronghold - often languish next to the bigger cities in whose shadow they sit.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
It’s not all doom and gloom in the software sector, as some high-profile stocks have posted standout gains this year while their peers languish.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 6, 2026
He was simply too vital to the organization to allow him to languish in jail.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
Official readouts and state media reports have not said whether Xi and Kim discussed North Korea's nuclear weapons development, for which Pyongyang languishes under international sanctions.
From Barron's ● Jun. 9, 2026
Tortora, meanwhile, languishes in squalid jail cells and a country with only a casual regard for habeas corpus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 19, 2026
Jenner is likely taking a significant financial hit on the property as it languishes on the market.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 17, 2026
Discovery has attracted interest from activist shareholders as the company’s stock languishes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2025
One flatters me, another exerts all his wit to entertain me, a third sighs and languishes at my feet,--and it is all a lie, all wretched hypocrisy!
From Too Rich A Romance by Adolph Streckfuss
In return, he left us a sublime body of work, one that languished in astonishing critical neglect until the mid-19th and early-20th centuries, the result of a dwindling taste for monastic and devotional art.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Bloom, a fuel-cell producer, is a member of the Russell 2000, where it languished for several years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
Former state controller Betty Yee — who languished at the bottom of the polls — held on for a few more weeks before calling it quits.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026
His Palm Beach compound languished for six years and required $22 million in price cuts before it was sold, while his sprawling Oyster Bay compound on Long Island was recently taken off the market.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 3, 2026
A frozen banana tree, brow'n and stricken, languished against the front of the porch, the tree preparing to collapse as the iron fence had done long ago.
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
The club he loves are languishing in the third division of Spanish football - and one thing is on his mind.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
Nunes resigned in April after White House advisers told Trump his company was languishing, according to people familiar with the matter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
Former attorneys in the division worry that other preexisting cases are languishing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 19, 2026
After languishing in development hell under Stanley Kubrick for two decades, the notoriously intense auteur deferred the project to Spielberg, believing he would be the right fit to tell such a complex yet tender story.
From Salon ● Jun. 28, 2026
A wicked king’s wooden wives languishing under an evil wooden spell.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
