Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Third-person singular simple present indicative form of languish.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word languishes.

Examples

  • “Free labor languishes and becomes degrading when put in competition with slave labor,” said a leading member of the party in 1860, “and idleness, poverty, and vice, among large classes of non-slaveholders take the place of industry and thrift and virtue.”

    A Renegade History of the United States Thaddeus Russell 2010

  • Nigeria, which has been plagued by corruption and languishes in 156th place out of 187 countries in the UN's Human Development Index, topped the Gallup survey of 51 countries' economic optimism.

    Nigerians optimistic about economic prospects 2011

  • Without the feminine counterbalancing the masculine, without care balancing rights, without community balancing individualism, the human spirit languishes as a one-winged creature unable to soar.

    Birute Regine: The Land of the Free and the Home of the Care-Less? Birute Regine 2010

  • Without the feminine counterbalancing the masculine, without care balancing rights, without community balancing individualism, the human spirit languishes as a one-winged creature unable to soar.

    Birute Regine: The Land of the Free and the Home of the Care-Less? Birute Regine 2010

  • Consequently the property languishes on the market and the lender is more apt to accept less.

    Jerry Chautin: Some Real Estate Agents Are In Cahoots With Fraudsters Jerry Chautin 2011

  • "We cannot continue to see chief executive pay rise at 13% a year while performance on the stock exchange languishes well behind," Cable said.

    Vince Cable hands shareholders power to tackle executive pay 2012

  • He or she languishes in a system that, despite the best efforts of commanders, medical providers and social workers, delays their return to civilian life.

    Up to 35% if wounded soldiers addicted to drugs 2011

  • But economists said the shift reflects trends that have been at play for several years, with Brazil emerging as a global economic power while Mexico languishes with a political environment that has proven hostile to certain economic reforms and a grueling drug war.

    Brazil's Per-Capita Income Surpassed Mexico In 2010 Paul Kiernan 2011

  • "Decades of U.S. policy are nibbled away or jettisoned altogether to reestablish relations with the penal colony that goes by the name of the Republic of Cuba, and yet Fidel doesn't phone or even write--he arrests a State Department contractor who's down there doing humanitarian work and throws him into one of Cuba's notorious prisons, where he languishes still, more than a month later."

    Morning Bits Jennifer Rubin 2011

  • Consequently the property languishes on the market and the lender is more apt to accept less.

    Jerry Chautin: Some Real Estate Agents Are In Cahoots With Fraudsters Jerry Chautin 2011

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.