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Languish   Listen
verb
Languish  v. i.  (past & past part. languished; pres. part. languishing)  
1.
To become languid or weak; to lose strength or animation; to be or become dull, feeble or spiritless; to pine away; to linger in a weak or deteriorating condition; to wither or fade. "We... do languish of such diseases." "Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life." "For the fields of Heshbon languish."
2.
To assume an expression of weariness or tender grief, appealing for sympathy.
3.
To be neglected and unattended to; as, the proposal languished on the director's desk for months.
Synonyms: To pine; wither; fade; droop; faint.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Languish" Quotes from Famous Books



... languish for husband or dower; I never sigh to see 'gyps' at my feet; I make the butter fly, all in an hour, Taking it home for my ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... manly. Such was the prevalence of these airy nothings, that our author's comedy was neglected for them, and the tragedy of Phaedra slid Hippolitus, which for poetry is equal to any in our tongue, (and though Mr. Addison wrote the prologue, and Prior the epilogue) was suffered to languish, while multitudes flocked to hear the warblings of foreign eunuchs, whose highest excellence, as Young expresses ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... mercies of the 'Berkeley Border Guard,' and such braves as the Texan Rangers, the Mississippi Bowie-knives, and the Louisiana Tiger Zouaves. Gray-headed men like Pendleton and Strother were dragged from their homes to languish for weeks in Richmond jails, and the old reign of terror was reestablished with renewed virulence. Shall we ask these poor, deceived Unionists of Northern Virginia what they think of Gen. Patterson, and ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... Cavalier arrived in Ireland, and found that, without the hearty and courageous assistance of his Puritan neighbours, he and all his family would run imminent risk of being murdered by Popish marauders, his hatred of Puritanism, in spite of himself, began to languish and die away. It was remarked by eminent men of both parties that a Protestant who, in Ireland, was called a high Tory would in England have been considered as a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... his Noblenesse, Conceyuing the dishonour of his Mother. He straight declin'd, droop'd, tooke it deeply, Fasten'd, and fix'd the shame on't in himselfe: Threw-off his Spirit, his Appetite, his Sleepe, And down-right languish'd. Leaue me solely: goe, See how he fares: Fie, fie, no thought of him, The very thought of my Reuenges that way Recoyle vpon me: in himselfe too mightie, And in his parties, his Alliance; Let him be, Vntill a time may serue. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... people. The need of education of all kinds for both races is wofully apparent. But men and nations have been free without being learned, and there have been educated slaves. Liberty has been known to languish where culture had reached a very high development. Nations do not first become rich and learned and then free, but the lesson of history has been that they first become free and then rich and learned, and oftentimes fall back into slavery again because ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... had been exchanged, the conversation began to languish; and the minister seized my right hand and gently drew it from the mysterious recesses of my ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... to enter a remark. Life is languid, the blood becomes lazy, at the extremities of our bodily system, as we ourselves know by dolorous experience under the complaint of purpura; and analogously we find the utility of our supreme government to droop and languish before it reaches the Indian world. Hence partly it is (for nearer home we see nothing of the kind), that foreign adventurers receive far too much encouragement from our British Satraps in the East. To find themselves within 'the regions of the morn,' and cheek to cheek with famous Sultans ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... husbands and brothers refused to pay higher prices. America is suffering not for want of the cheapest labor, but for a laborer like the Chinese, and until they have him industries will languish. With American labor and American "union" prices it is impossible for the American farmer or rancher to make money. The vineyardist, the orange, lemon, olive, and other fruit raisers can not compete with Europe. Labor is kept up to such a ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... into the conspiracy. It will be remembered what he had formerly suffered from his father; since that time he had married, and the close-fisted old man had left him, with his wife and children, to languish in poverty. Guerra's house was selected to meet in and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... object. If he had anything like spirit, enterprise, and courage, he would make a fine confusion in Spain, and probably succeed; his departure from the Peninsula and taking refuge here has not caused the war to languish in the north. Admiral Napier is arrived, and has taken a lodging close to him in Portsmouth. Miraflores paid a droll compliment to Madame de Lieven the other night. She was pointing out the various beauties at some ball, and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... had conspired to do this dastardly deed were sent to cool their misguided ardour in the Tower, from which Northumberland, Jane and her husband were led to the headsman's block; while Robert Dudley was among those who were left to languish in durance, and to while away the tedious hours of captivity by carving their emblems and names on the walls of their cells, where they may be seen to this day, or to stroll disconsolately on the Tower leads by way of ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... Augustus as among their modern successors. In the fine climate of Greece, Italy, and Spain, they were a natural growth, and involved no great strain upon a wooer's endurance. They assume a very different aspect under a northern sky, where young Absolute, found by his Lydia Languish "in the garden, in the coldest night in January, stuck like a dripping statue," presents a rather lugubrious spectacle. Horace (Odes, III. 7) warns the fair Asterie, during the absence of her husband abroad, to shut ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... only to narrate; not in imparting what they have thought, which indeed were often a very small matter, but in exhibiting what they have undergone or seen, which is a quite unlimited one, do talkers dilate. Cut us off from Narrative, how would the stream of conversation, even among the wisest, languish into detached handfuls, and among the foolish utterly evaporate! Thus, as we do nothing but enact History, we say little ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... where the Mistres and Servant are learned in this amorous blazon. Yesterday I wore Folimort, Grisdelin and Isabella: Folimort is withered, Grisdelin is absent, and Isabella is beauty, which put together express I did wither or languish ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... worthy occupant of the Parthian throne than his father, and that he would consult well for his own interests if he were to proclaim the young prince, and lead the army of Syria against Orodes. These intrigues seem, to have first caused the war to languish, and then produced the recall of the expedition. Orodes summoned Pacorus to return to Parthia before the plot contrived between him and the Romans was ripe for execution; and Pacorus felt that no course was open to him but to obey. The Parthian legions recrossed the Euphrates in July, B.C. 50; ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... own hand did make, Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate', To me that languish'd for her sake: But when she saw my woeful state, Straight in her heart did mercy come, Chiding that tongue that ever sweet Was us'd in giving gentle doom; And taught it thus anew to greet; 'I hate' she alter'd with an ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... may cost you something—are you willing to buy it at a sacrifice? Is there—I don't speak of fortune, that is not involved—but is there any other honourable sacrifice you would shrink from to dispel the disgrace under which our most ancient and honourable name must otherwise continue to languish?' ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... the way; When geese and pullen are seduc'd, And sows of sucking-pigs are chows'd; When cattle feel indisposition, 115 And need th' opinion of physician; When murrain reigns in hogs or sheep. And chickens languish of the pip; When yeast and outward means do fail, And have no pow'r to work on ale: 120 When butter does refuse to come, And love proves cross and humoursome: To him with questions, and with urine, They for discov'ry flock, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... so well that they may not be prolific. It is better for the soul to sink on the earth than to languish in carnal fetters." ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... oration with impatience, passed to the order of the day, and called loudly for Decades, with celebrations in honour of "the liberty of the world, posterity, stoicism, the republic, and the hatred of tyrants!" But the people, who understand nothing of this new worship, languish after the saints of their ancestors, and think St. Francois d'Assise, or St. Francois de Sales, at least as likely to afford them spiritual consolation, as Carmagnoles, political homilies, or ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... published, to authorise us in saying that it is not in point of narrative that the present author will obtain any advantage over his predecessors. It is in disquisition that he rejoices, and succeeds; it is the argumentative matter which excites and sustains him. His style seems to languish when the effort of ratiocination gives place to the task of the narrator. We fancy we see him resume the pen with listlessness, when nothing remains for the historian but to tell ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... glittering fires. 410 Willows and tamarisks and elms he burn'd, Burn'd lotus, rushes, reeds; all plants and herbs That clothed profuse the margin of his flood. His eels and fishes, whether wont to dwell In gulfs beneath, or tumble in the stream, 415 All languish'd while the artist of the skies Breath'd on them; even Xanthus lost, himself, All force, and, suppliant, Vulcan thus address'd. Oh Vulcan! none in heaven itself may cope With thee. I yield to thy consuming fires. 420 Cease, cease. I reck not if Achilles drive Her citizens, this moment, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... think best, as your fingers are on the pulse of the people, let us resolve the Union Society into the National Association. So say Mr. and Mrs. Minor, but whatever is done, the two grand women who have the qualifications for leadership must be at the head; the cause will languish until you are back in your ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... When they came to consider the military and naval establishments, they would remember that, unless England were secure from attack, she could not continue to hold the high place which she had won for herself among European powers; her trade would languish; her credit would fail; and even her internal tranquillity would be in danger. He also expressed a hope that some progress would be made in the discharge of the debts contracted during the War. "I think," he said, "an English Parliament can never make such ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... interests of the conquered province, he gave the people small reason to regret the change of government. The established Dutch church not only was not molested, but was continued in full possession of its exceptional privileges. And it continued to languish. At the time of the surrender the province contained "three cities, thirty villages, and ten thousand inhabitants,"[78:1] and for all these there were six ministers. The six soon dribbled away to three, and for ten years ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... would seem that love wounds the lover. For languor denotes a hurt in the one that languishes. But love causes languor: for it is written (Cant 2:5): "Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples; because I languish with love." Therefore love is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... form, and smart your dress, Your air, your language, ev'ry warmth express Yet, if a banker, or a financier, With handsome presents happen to appear, At once is blessed the wealthy paramour, While you a year may languish at ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... a living thing, ceased on the Greek mainland and in the Aegean isles including Crete, together with Aegean writing. In Cyprus, and perhaps on the south-west Anatolian coasts, there is some reason to think that the cataclysm was less complete, and Aegean art continued to languish, cut off from its fountain-head. Such artistic faculty as survived elsewhere issued in the lifeless geometric style which is reminiscent of the later Aegean, but wholly unworthy of it. Cremation took the place of burial of the dead. This great disaster, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... peace has departed the care-stricken breast, And the feet of the weary one languish for rest; When the world is a wide-spreading ocean of grief, How blest the return of the Bird and the Leaf! Reliance on God is the Dove to our Ark, And Peace is the olive she plucks in the dark. The ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... Theseus I languish and I long, not as the Shades Have seen him, of a thousand different forms The fickle lover, and of Pluto's bride The would-be ravisher, but faithful, proud E'en to a slight disdain, with youthful charms Attracting every ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine

... art thou lovely, my Marion, Thy heart bounds in kindness to me; And here, oh, here is my bosom, That languish'd, my ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... to Blue Beard, 'I have seized a bull on the lips, and my dogs have devoured my servants,'" replied the Gascon, "the conversation would languish; and zounds! one cannot always be feeding a man to the dogs in order ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... incensed, the Paphian queen replies: "Obey the power from whom thy glories rise: Should Venus leave thee, every charm must fly, Fade from thy cheek, and languish in thy eye. Cease to provoke me, lest I make thee more The world's aversion, than their love before; Now the bright prize for which mankind engage, Than, the sad victim, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... sentiment its dignity may be lost. But as the legislative proceedings of the United States will never, I trust, be reproached for the want of temper or of candor, so shall not the public happiness languish from the want of my strenuous and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... must not Brest and the Shipping Interest languish? Poor Brest languishes, sorrowing, not without spleen; denounces an Aristocrat Bertrand-Moleville traitorous Aristocrat Marine-Minister. Do not her Ships and King's Ships lie rotting piecemeal in harbour; Naval Officers mostly fled, and on furlough too, with pay? Little stirring there; if it ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... to my feet, said, with whispering timid voice, "O gracious sir, our lady is doubly yours, since she was gained by your own valour when you rescued her from death, and is assigned to you by the all-powerful God of Love. Do not let her languish in vain. Make her your wife without delay." With this request I could not refuse to comply, and taking the hand of the princess, I declared our ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... purple sky,—cool and dewy and fresh;—they are the thoughts of Thelma; such thoughts! So wise and earnest, so pure and full of tender shadows!—no hand has grasped them rudely, no rough touch has spoiled their smoothness! They open full-faced to the sky, they never droop or languish; they have no secrets, save the marvel of their beauty. Now you have come, you will have no pity,—one by one you will gather and play with her thoughts as though they were these blossoms,—your burning hand will mar their color,—they will wither and furl up and die, all of them,—and ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... to whom it appeared more a time for comfort than for reproof, said, smilingly, 'Alack, my son, hast thou then for this suffered thyself to languish thus? Take comfort and leave me do, once thou shalt be recovered.' The youth, full of good hope, in a very short time showed signs of great amendment, whereas the lady, being much rejoiced, began to cast about how she might perform that which ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... do not choose pain as preferable to pleasure, but they are incited by a restless disposition to make continued exertions of capacity and resolution; they triumph in the midst of their struggles; they droop, and they languish, when the occasion of their labour ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... against the disease. Few were found brave enough to undertake the duty of nursing the sick, and those who did generally paid for their devotion with their lives. In most cases the patient was left to languish alone, and perished by neglect, while his nearest and dearest avoided his presence, and had grown so callous that they had not a sigh or a tear left for the death of husband, or child, or friend. The few who recovered, now free from risk of mortal infection, ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... little feet patter close around him, small hands, eagerly outstretched, appeal to him. Anon rise shrieks and infantile crowings of delight as each small hand is drawn back grasping a plump paper bag—shrieks and crowings that languish and die away, one by one, since no human child may shriek properly and chew peanuts at one and the same time. And in a while, his stock greatly diminished, Ravenslee trundles off and leaves behind him women ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... that keeps our increase of wealth in the country, and prevents it from lodging in a few hands, can work no injury whatever. No enterprise worthy of notice will languish for the want of the necessary capital. The savings banks are the depositories of the people, and the capital of those institution in all the cities of the country exceeds that of the commercial or capitalistic banks, and the "statements" of the savings banks should dispel any ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood

... the same rare family. They were touched with the ineffable, the inscrutable, and Delacroix in especial with the incalculable; categories these toward which we had even then, by a happy transition, begun to yearn and languish. We were not yet aware of style, though on the way to become so, but were aware of mystery, which indeed was one of its forms—while we saw all the others, without exception, exhibited at the Louvre, where at first they simply ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... Aleppo! whom the Bulbul choosing Would wander from his worshiped rose of May, O'er thy fair chalice her remembrance losing, To languish 'mid thy leaves his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... requests for money did not awaken the least suspicion in him; Pierre's stinginess sufficed to explain the difficulty he experienced in securing from time to time a paltry twenty-franc piece. This, however, only increased his animosity towards his brother, who left him to languish in military service in spite of his formal promise to purchase his discharge. He vowed to himself that on his return home he would no longer submit like a child, but would flatly demand his share of the fortune to enable him to live as he pleased. In the diligence ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... inhumanity, partly from want of strength to combat the established order of things and partly from the easy ability of each to shift his share of the blame for what his instincts condemn, onto the shoulders of others. Reforms left to the collective conscience of such a community are apt to languish. Such is man's nature that the most unnatural and abnormal conditions come to be tolerated by common acquiescence, until something—an event without or a stirring of his soul within—startles his better self into a realisation of his surroundings, the scales fall from his ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... to the rank of Field Marshal. When the Marquis del Vasto succeeded to the Spanish governorship of Milan in 1536, he determined to gratify an old grudge against the ex-pirate, and, having invited him to a banquet, made him prisoner. II Medeghino was not, however, destined to languish in a dungeon. Princes and kings interested themselves in his fate. He was released, and journeyed to the court of Charles V. in Spain. The Emperor received him kindly, and employed him first in the Low Countries, where he helped to repress the burghers of Ghent, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... higher walks of society, where this unutterably miserable false shame of Protestantism acts in proportion to the general acuteness of the cultivated sensibilities, let no unwillingness to suggest the sick person's real need suffer him to languish between his want and his morbid sensitiveness. What an infinite advantage the Mussulmans and the Catholics have over many of our more exclusively spiritual sects in the way they keep their religion always by them and never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... doubted it, my dear lady. But before we proceed to conclude this little deal I want to ask you a question or two. Surely you will not let me languish of curiosity. I want to know—tell me—how did you ever hit upon this ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... are oblig'd for this Enjoyment, which shou'd Love make us transgress, and he shou'd wake and surprize us, we are undone for ever: no, let us employ this little time we have in consulting how we may be often happy, and securely so: Oh, how I languish for the dear opportunity! ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... Richelieu, 'a man in the grand style, if ever man was,' had decided that New France should no longer languish, and the Company of One Hundred Associates was the result. In 1627 he abolished the office of viceroy, deprived the De Caens of their charter, and prepared to make Canada a real colony. The basis of the plan was an association of one hundred members, each subscribing three thousand ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby

... who has been Thus carefully forming thy plan! May smiles from the fair, Rid of much toil and care— Shine on him, in moments of anguish. May their tender hands To obey his commands Be ready, should he in life languish. ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... or malevolence; it must be the genuine effect of corresponding sentiments, or it will impress upon the countenance a new and more disgusting deformity, affectation: it will produce the grin, the simper, the stare, the languish, the pout, and innumerable other grimaces, that render folly ridiculous, and change pity ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... them so, it is true, but they regard him as a person bound by his profession to say that sort of thing, and are sharp enough to see that the consequences of their sin, foretold by him with such awful eloquence, never by any chance come off. No girl is left to languish and die forsaken by her betrayer, for the betrayer is a worthy young man who marries her as soon as he possibly can; no finger of scorn is pointed at the fallen one, for all the fingers in the street are attached to women who began ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim

... saw me languish, Deaf to all a father said, Deaf to all a mother's anguish, All a brother's ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... her. 'You are in my country,' he said very gently. 'Now it is your country, as I am yours. You are not dead but living, and brimming with the love I languish for; and here you will stay with me, and we will love one another very tenderly in the heart of my gloom, and you will be ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... against my consent that she married this barbarian, but she would have him, though her year was not out. Ah! her first husband, my son Languish, would not have carried it thus. Well, that was my choice, this is hers; she is matched now with a witness- -I shall be mad, dear friend; is there no comfort for me? Must I live to be confiscated at this rebel-rate? Here come two more of my ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... and acted with overflowing houses all over the country. How could it be otherwise? It may have been exaggerated, far-fetched, unnatural, but such characters as Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Lucius, Bob Acres, Lydia Languish, and most of all Mrs. Malaprop, so admirably conceived, and so carefully and ingeniously worked out, could not but be admired. They have become household words; they are even now our standards of ridicule, and be they natural or not, these last eighty ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... tell that he don't LIE. That mout and it moutn't be good for your brother who goes around with him considerable, there's different ways of lookin' at that; you understand what I mean? You follow me?" For all that, the conversation seemed to languish this evening, partly through some abstraction on the part of Wayne and partly some hesitation in McGee, who appeared to have a greater fear than usual of not expressing himself plainly. It was quite dark in the cabin when at last, detaching himself from ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... "He would have been obliged to languish all his life in that frightful prison! At all events, he is not suffering now! Now he is better off! Evidently, so had his ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... anchylosis in the St. Gothard Tunnel, and the Americans mowed down by shot and shell while fighting for the abolition of slavery, have helped to develop the cotton industry of France and England, as well as the work-girls who languish in the factories of Manchester and Rouen, and the inventor who (following the suggestion of some worker) succeeds in improving ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... Reformed Toilet Table, not the least vital will be a list of the emotions that become its owner, with recipes for simulating them. According to the colour she wills her hair to be for the time—black or yellow or, peradventure, burnished red—she will blush for you, sneer for you, laugh or languish for you. The good combinations of line and colour are nearly numberless, and by their means poor restless woman will be able to realise her moods in all their shades and lights and dappledoms, to live many lives and masquerade through ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm

... regulation of his affairs with humanity, and the collection of little wooden cells he called his jail. Every individual who had offended, hurt, humiliated, or defrauded him was assigned such a keep in which he was obliged to languish, figuratively, until his time, determined by ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... was much the same as the management of a state; she believed that the hostess must never join in the conversation as long as it goes on by itself, but, ever watchful, must never permit disturbances, disagreements, improprieties, or obstacles; she must animate it if it languish; she must see that conversation never takes a dangerous, disagreeable, or tiresome turn, and that it never brings into undue prominence one man especially, as this makes others jealous and displeases the entire society; ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... concerns the sixth mountain having greater and lesser clefts, they are such as have believed; but those in which were lesser clefts are they who have had controversies among themselves; and by reason of their quarrels languish ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... left a letter for you, Dr. Thorpe, which I have been privileged to read. You will find it in this envelope. For the benefit of future beneficiaries under this instrument, I may say that he expresses the hope and desire that you will not permit the movement to languish after your death. In fact, he expressly instructs you to establish during your life time a systematic scheme of education by reason of which the world eventually may become converted to the ideas which you promulgate ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... and the devotee, Revealing with each freak or feint The temper of Petruchio's Kate, The raptures of Siena's saint. Her tapering hand and rounded wrist Had facile power to form a fist; The warm, dark languish of her eyes Was never safe from wrath's surprise. Brows saintly calm and lips devout Knew every change of scowl and pout; And the sweet voice had notes more high And shrill for ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... tendency, the cause in its present extent can not be very long in duration. The evil will not, however, be viewed by Congress without a recollection that manufacturing establishments, if suffered to sink too low or languish too long, may not revive after the causes shall have ceased, and that in the vicissitudes of human affairs situations may recur in which a dependence on foreign sources for indispensable supplies may be among the most ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... me wander beings pallid, Fill the air with words of anguish: All our doings are invalid, Sick and old, we slowly languish. ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... observe the opposite fault we must seek the infants and children who for a long time are inmates of institutions, orphanages, infirmaries, hospitals, and so forth. In such surroundings the mental life of the child may languish. His physical wants are cared for, but there the matter ends. In a rigid routine he is washed and fed, but he may not be talked to or played with or stimulated in any way. His day is spent passively lying in his cot, ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... upon the lintels of our doors Wail to be justified. Shall there be mutterings at the seasons' yield? Has eye of man seen bared the granary floors? Are the fields wasted? Spilled the oil and wine? Is the fat seed under the clod decayed? Does ever the fig tree languish or the vine? Who has beheld the harvest promise fade? Or any orchard heavy with fruit asway Withered away? No, not these things, but grosser things than these Are the dim parents of a guilt not dim; Ancestral urges out of old caves blowing, When Fear watched at our coming ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... Which giving her, she may give thee again: Wilt thou her fault learn? she may make thee tremble. Fear to be guilty, then thou may'st dissemble. Think when she reads, her mother letters sent her: Let him go forth known, that unknown did enter. 20 Let him go see her though she do not languish, And then report her sick and full of anguish. If long she stays, to think the time more short, Lay down thy forehead in thy lap to snort. Inquire not what with Isis may be done, Nor fear lest she to the theatres run. Knowing her scapes, thine honour shall increase; ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... home but to languish and die. When the news of her mortal illness reached the Sabbath school, in which she had now been a faithful and beloved teacher for about a year, it produced the most intense interest and solicitude. All felt that a dearly beloved sister had become the victim of the destroyer. ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston

... But grant her end More distant, and that prophecy demands A longer respite, unaccomplished yet; Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak Displeasure in His breast who smites the earth Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice. And 'tis but seemly, that, where all deserve And stand exposed by common peccancy To what no few have felt, there should be peace, And brethren in calamity ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... the plan, even if I should accomplish it. I should get myself into trouble, dark and deep. Well, if I had to languish behind bars for a while I could survive it. But she might not. As I thought of this I knew that I had made up ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... you then think I can with patience see That sovereign good possessed, and not by me? No; I all day shall languish at the sight, And rave on what I do not see all night; My quick imagination will present The scenes and images ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... highest interests. We must always wait for sensible evidence for our beliefs; and where such evidence is inaccessible we must frame no hypotheses whatever. Of course this is a safe enough position in abstracto. If a thinker had no stake in the unknown, no vital needs, to live or languish according to what the unseen world contained, a philosophic neutrality and refusal to believe either one way or the other would be his wisest cue. But, unfortunately, neutrality is not only inwardly difficult, it ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... patriotic, and would brave all in following the fortunes of the Confederate States Government. Is this because they do not participate in the hardships and dangers of the field? But many of our men are weary and worn, and languish for repose. These would probably remain quiescent on parole, submitting to the rule of the conqueror; but hoping still for foreign intervention or Confederate victories, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... intrepidity of a truly heroic mind. He felt a conviction of his growing powers, and panted for opportunities of bringing them to the proof. His present sphere of action, confined to a comparatively small spot, for the Triumph never once went out to sea while he remained on board, made him languish for some new situation, better suited to his enterprising spirit; and it was not long before an occurrence took place, which seemed to promise the gratification of ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... imperfect in some of its details; it may be misunderstood and opposed; it may not always be faithfully applied; its designs may sometimes miscarry through mistake or willful intent; it may sometimes tremble under the assaults of its enemies or languish under the misguided zeal of impracticable friends; but if the people of this country ever submit to the banishment of its underlying principle from the operation of their Government they will abandon the surest guaranty of the safety and success ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... are no longer twenty years of age. Believe me, I speak according to my own knowledge and experience. A prison is certain death for men who are at our time of life. No, no; I will never allow you to languish in prison in such a way. Why, the very thought of it makes my head ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of Envy and of Love! That turnest into pain thy father's joys, To evil Argus-eyed, but blind as mole to good. Minister of torment! Jealousy! Fetid harpy! Tisiphone infernal! Who steals and poisons others' good, Under thy cruel breath does languish The sweetest flower of all my hopes. Proud of thyself, unlovely one, Bird of sorrow and harbinger of ill, The heart thou visitest by thousand doors; If entrance unto thee could be denied, The reign of Love would so much ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... I languish, Full of sorrow, full of anguish, Fainting, gasping, trembling, crying, Panting, groaning, speechless, dying; Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say, "Be not ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... does not require much skill in experiments of this kind to enable one to see plainly that immediately after the glass has been placed on the drop, which has been affected all over by atmospheric air, the whole of the vibrios seem to languish and to manifest symptoms of illness—we can think of no better expression to explain what we see taking place—and that they gradually recover their activity about the centre, in proportion as they find themselves in a part of the medium that is less affected by the ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... ("Gewisz!"—"Nimmermehr!"—"Vortrefflich!") "I don't care to draw distinctions between forms of the thing. Socialism, communism, collectivism, parliamentarism,—all these have one and the same end: to put men on an equality; and in proportion as that end is approached, so will art in every shape languish. Art, gentlemen, is nourished upon inequalities and injustices!" ("Ach!"—"Wie kann man so etwas sagen!"—"Hoch! verissime!") "I am not representing this as either good or bad. It may be well that justice should be established, even though art perish. I simply state a fact!" ("Doch!"—"Erlauben ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... Hildebrand. The boundaries of Christendom were as yet narrow and insecure. With the overthrow of Olaf Tryggvesson in this year 1000, and the temporary partition of Norway between Swedes and Danes, the work of Christianizing the North seemed, for the moment, to languish. Upon the eastern frontier the wild Hungarians had scarcely ceased to be a terror to Europe, and in this year Stephen, their first Christian king, began to reign. At the same time the power of heretical Bulgaria, which had threatened to overwhelm the Eastern ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... soon be extinct. To the next generation, in all probability, the word bum will be but an empty name. I doubt whether it would be a feasible plan for Dr. Hornaday to undertake to preserve a small number of this species in the Bronx Park. The bum nature, I fear, would languish in captivity. The creature would likely lose its health, and, worse, its spirits. It is a nomad, a child of nature. It takes no thought for the morrow, as our modern prophets teach us to do. I remember well an excellent bum (I mean excellently conforming ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday

... 210 When tidings came to me, unhappy maid, O how great sorrow my sad soule assaid. Then forth I went his woefull corse to find, And many yeares throughout the world I straid, A virgin widow, whose deepe wounded mind 215 With love long time did languish as the ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... for the cigars. We had talked long, and the conversation was beginning to languish; the tobacco smoke had got into the heavy curtains, the wine had got into those brains which were liable to become heavy, and it was already perfectly evident that, unless somebody did something to rouse ...
— The Upper Berth • Francis Marion Crawford

... and which failed with me likewise! It was not the Beauty—Miss Flora was for my master—(and what a master! I protest I take off my hat at the idea of such an illustrious connexion!)—it was Dora, the Muse, was set upon me to languish at me and to pity me, and to read even my godless tragedy, and applaud me and console me. Meanwhile, how was the Beauty occupied? Will it be believed that my severe aunt gave a great entertainment to my Lady Yarmouth, presented her boy to her, and placed poor little Miles under ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... membership roll, and of this number twelve have set their faces toward the Gospel ministry. Oh, what a source of joy to me that I leave that association in such a high condition of vigor and prosperity! No church can languish, no church can die, while it has plenty of ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... spread like silk, And, Nurse, the moon doth languish there, As if it were a perfect jewel ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare

... my heart was bitter with unutterable anguish, And I cried out in my slumber till with my words I woke: "How long, O Lord, must poverty bow down its head and languish, While wrong, with wealth to garnish it, makes strong the ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey

... it."—"Consciously or in a dream?"—"I believe I was more asleep than awake. For if any one had come upon me then I should have felt it very painfully. I have incidentally noted the words: 'Oh moon with thy white face, thou knowest I am in love only with thee. Come down to me. I languish in torture, let me only comfort myself upon thy face. Thou enticing, beautiful, lovely spirit, thou torturest me to death, my suffering rends me, thou beautiful Moon, thou sweet one, mine, I implore thee, release me from this pain, I can bear it no longer. Ah, what avail my words and my complainings! ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... late years, has looked askance at the attitude of clergymen toward the wealthier members of their congregation. And, in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, with absolutely no cause. The Church is in need. The poor are in dire distress. Missions languish for the few paltry thousands that would carry the Word ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... years Cairo has possessed a university of high rank, which greatly increased in importance on the accession of Mehemet Ali, in 1805, who established many other schools, primary, scientific, medical, and military, though they were suffered to languish under his two successors. In 1865, when Ismail- Pacha mounted the throne as Khedive (tributary king), he gave powerful aid to the university and to public instruction everywhere. The number of students at the University of Cairo advanced to eleven thousand. The wife of the Khedive, the Princess ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... sort of assistance is dangerous. For the principal and only genuine excitement ought to come from within,—from the moved and sympathetic imagination; whereas, where so much is addressed to the mere external senses of seeing and hearing, the spiritual vision is apt to languish, and the attraction from without will withdraw the mind from the proper and only legitimate interest which is ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... and deprived of healthy action; this man lives for himself alone, and only the baser passions spring up in his breast. His soul is too narrow for Christian benevolence; sympathy and emotion are disabled and all his nobler faculties languish. Action, from intelligent and benevolent principles, is a great fountain of happiness. Few streams of bliss equal those which flow from charitable exertions. Benevolence and well-doing are great inducements to future exertions, because of the fact ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various

... millions of others, inevitably experiences a strengthening and intensifying influence from the sympathy of his fellows. If he knew himself to be solitary and alone in his opinions, unsupported by that human sympathy which every one craves, his ideas would languish, and be greatly diminished in their power. It is only great minds, of exceptional character, which can do battle, single-handed, against the world. Most men require to be propped and supported on all sides, by the great power ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Inclined her sceptre, favouring. Now the fates Have other tasks imposed;—to thee, my friend, 70 The ministry of freedom and the faith Of popular decrees, in early youth, Not vainly they committed; me they sent To wait on pain, and silent arts to urge, Inglorious; not ignoble, if my cares, To such as languish on a grievous bed, Ease and the sweet forgetfulness of ill Conciliate; nor delightless, if the Muse, Her shades to visit and to taste her springs, If some distinguish'd hours the bounteous Muse 80 Impart, and grant (what she, and she alone, Can grant to mortals) ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside



Words linked to "Languish" :   die, languisher, long, pine away, devolve, waste, fade, yen, hanker, deteriorate



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