languish

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lan·guish / ˈlanggwish/ • v. [intr.] 1. (of a person or other living thing) lose or lack vitality; grow weak or feeble: plants may appear to be languishing simply because they are dormant. ∎  fail to make progress or be successful: many Japanese works still languish unrecognized in Europe. ∎ archaic pine with love or grief: she still languished after Richard.2. suffer from being forced to remain in an unpleasant place or situation: he has been languishing in a Mexican jail since 1974.DERIVATIVES: lan·guish·er n. lan·guish·ing·ly adv. lan·guish·ment n. ( archaic ).ORIGIN: Middle English (in the sense ‘become faint, feeble, or ill’): from Old French languiss-, lengthened stem of languir ‘languish,’ from a variant of Latin languere, related to laxus ‘loose, lax.’