languishing
languishing Lexical Profile
languishing Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Becoming weak, feeble, or losing vitality; failing to make progress or achieve success.
"The government introduced new tax incentives to revitalize the region's languishing manufacturing sector."
Showing or affected by a dreamy, sentimental, or listless longing.
"The portrait captured the poet with a languishing expression as he gazed out the window."
• noun
A state of mental weariness, stagnation, and emptiness characterized by a lack of vitality, purpose, or joy, without necessarily meeting the criteria for clinical depression.
"Psychologists noted that a widespread sense of languishing affected many remote workers during the prolonged lockdown."
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Derived from the verb 'languish', which entered Middle English via Old French from the Latin 'languere' ('to be faint or weak'), combined with the participial suffix '-ing'. In modern psychology, the noun form was popularized by sociologist Corey Keyes to describe the state of low mental well-being opposite to flourishing.