Longstanding

How to spell longstanding

12 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce longstanding

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does longstanding mean?

1. adjectiveHaving existed or continued for a long time.

Longstanding in a sentence

• The two firms have a longstanding agreement to share warehouse space.

• Her longstanding interest in local history led her to write the book.

Where does longstanding come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, joining the native words 'long' and 'standing', both of which descend from Old English. 'Long' goes back to the Old English 'lang' or 'long', meaning 'extended in space or time', a word shared across the Germanic languages. 'Standing' is the present participle of 'stand', from Old English 'standan', meaning 'to remain upright or remain in place', so the compound originally pictured something that had been standing, that is enduring, for a great while. By the seventeenth century writers were using 'long standing' as a phrase to describe debts, grievances, and friendships that had persisted for many years, and over time the two words fused into the single adjective seen here. The chief spelling trap is precisely that fusion: there is no space and no hyphen in the closed form, and the join keeps both the 'g' ending of 'long' and the 's' beginning of 'standing', giving the slightly surprising 'ngst' cluster in the middle.

How the word is built

• long (adverb/adjective: for a great while)
• stand (Old English standan: to stand, to remain in place)
• -ing (present participle suffix forming an adjective)