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 division is under pressure to show quick results, but it has struggled to recruit prosecutors and has been slowed by an internal turf war that has caused some promising investigations to languish.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 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
Abrupt, unwelcome occurrences scar our autonomy and cripple our illusion of independence; the question of what went wrong falls on our shoulders, another loop to languish inside.
From Salon ● May 30, 2026
Witnessing a person languish is as frustrating as it is heartbreaking—especially when the reasons for their emotional and professional stagnation are completely valid.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 25, 2026
It was unlikely I would ever see these things again; I was certain they were doomed to languish in storage in some dark police facility.
From "Confessions of a Murder Suspect" by James Patterson
As a slideshow prepared by an executive explained, “We thrive in the valley of death,” the term for the bureaucratic gap where research languishes without being developed into a product.
From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2026
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
The plant remains—the tools and warehouses stand—the shops are open; but production languishes, labour is suspended.
From Knowledge is Power: A View of the Productive Forces of Modern Society and the Results of Labor, Capital and Skill. by Charles Knight
Yet meaningful, comprehensive control of AI both on the battlefield and off has languished, largely because trust between governments and understanding of the technology and its risks is lacking, Russell said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026
SpaceX shares initially jumped in its IPO but have since languished.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
The ETF then languished in correction territory — it never rose more than 10% off that Nov. 20 low — until it made a new low in early February.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 10, 2026
Ackman had praised Universal’s CEO Lucian Grainge, saying the company’s stock price had languished for reasons unrelated to its performance in the music business.
From The Wall Street Journal ● 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
Sir Ed has been under pressure this week to set out bolder policies, with his party languishing in fourth or fifth place in national opinion polls.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026
A “negative output gap, a languishing labor market, soft real income growth and unambiguously restrictive monetary policy should alleviate concerns around sticky underlying inflation in the U.K.,” von Ahlen argues.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 6, 2026
Kent debuted on the Baseball Writers’ Assn. of America Hall of Fame ballot five years later, languishing there for 10 consecutive seasons without coming close to the 75% threshold necessary to be elected.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026
Many exist only in manuscript form, languishing in the vaults of some library or monastery.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
There was my mom, my staunchest support, whose vigilance had saved me from languishing in a dreary second-grade classroom.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
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.
