LONGING

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does longing mean? 

• LONGING (noun)
  The noun LONGING has 1 sense:

1. prolonged unfulfilled desire or need

  Familiarity information: LONGING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LONGING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Prolonged unfulfilled desire or need

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

hungriness; longing; yearning

Hypernyms ("longing" is a kind of...):

desire (the feeling that accompanies an unsatisfied state)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "longing"):

hankering; yen (a yearning for something or to do something)

pining (a feeling of deep longing)

wishfulness (an unrealistic yearning)

wistfulness (a sadly pensive longing)

nostalgia (longing for something past)

discontent; discontentedness; discontentment (a longing for something better than the present situation)

Derivation:

long (desire strongly or persistently)

 Context examples 

My dear, he's longing for his little home, but it isn't home without you, and you are always in the nursery.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

In the same fashion, especially in the heat of summer when he suffered from the sun, he experienced faint longings for the Northland.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The blood-longing became stronger than ever before.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

I lay faint, longing to be dead.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Now the Wicked Witch had a great longing to have for her own the Silver Shoes which the girl always wore.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

My wife saw your rampion from the window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she had not got some to eat.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

It was, at least, a ticklish decision that he had to make; and self-reliant as he was by habit, he began to cherish a longing for advice.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Still, you could start to feel a longing to own property.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

I was longing for something to do.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)