Longing

How to spell longing

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce longing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does longing mean?

1. nounA strong, persistent feeling of wanting something or someone.
2. adjectiveShowing or expressing a strong, wistful desire for something.

Longing in a sentence

• noun

  After years abroad she felt a deep longing for home.

• adjective

  She gave the bakery window a longing look as she walked past.

• noun

  His longing for a quieter life finally pushed him to resign.

• adjective

  He cast a longing glance at the holiday brochures on the desk.

Where does longing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows out of the Old English verb langian, which originally meant 'to grow long' but also, more poignantly, 'to yearn for' something that is far away or out of reach. The link between length and desire is surprisingly logical: time spent waiting for what we want seems to stretch out and feel long, and the same root sits inside our ordinary word 'long' meaning extended in space or time. The verb to long, in the sense of yearning, was already well established in English before the Norman Conquest, and adding the familiar -ing ending turned it into the noun and adjective we use today. Related Germanic cousins survive in German, where sich sehnen and the noun Sehnsucht carry the same wistful flavour. Because the spelling simply joins the everyday word 'long' to a regular -ing ending, it holds few traps, though the soft, almost swallowed -ng sound can momentarily make writers hesitate.

How the word is built

• long (to yearn, from Old English langian)
• -ing (noun/adjective suffix)