longing
UK/ˈlɒŋɪŋ//ˈlɔːŋɪŋ/
longing is the present participle and gerund of long.
Noun
longing (plural longings)
- An earnest and deep, not greatly passionate, but rather melancholic desire.
- all natural lovings and longings1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 132, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
- For round the valley a great desert lies through which no common traveller may come, but those whom the gods have chosen feel suddenly a great longing at heart, and crossing the mountains that divide the desert from the world, set out across it driven by the gods, […]1906, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], Time and the Gods, London: William Heineman, →OCLC, page 2
- The buying of a financial instrument with the expectation that its value will rise.
Meaning of long
Verb (1)
long (third-person singular simple present longs, present participle longing, simple past and past participle longed)
- To take a long position in.
- The left panel shows the profile of a portfolio consisting of longing a call and shorting a put.2004, Thomas S. Y. Ho with Sang Bin Lee and Sang-bin Yi, The Oxford Guide to Financial Modeling, page 84
Verb (2)
long (third-person singular simple present longs, present participle longing, simple past and past participle longed)
Verb (3)
long (third-person singular simple present longs, present participle longing, simple past and past participle longed)
- To be appropriate to, to pertain or belong to.
- A goodly Armour, and full rich aray, / Which long’d to Angela, the Saxon Queene, / All fretted round with gold, and goodly wel beseene.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
Verb (4)
long (third-person singular simple present longs, present participle longing, simple past and past participle longed)
- To belong.
- Now ſend Ambaſſage to thy neighbor Kinges,
And let them know the Perſian King is chang’d:
From one that knew not what a King ſhould doe,
To one that can commaund what longs there to: […]c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
- Now ſend Ambaſſage to thy neighbor Kinges,
Synonyms of longing
Forms of longing
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more longing |
| superlative | most longing |
| Noun | |
| plural | longings |
Origin of longing
From Middle English longynge, langynge, langand, from Old English langiende, from Proto-Germanic *langōndz, present participle of Proto-Germanic *langōną (“to desire, long for”), equivalent to long + -ing (present participle ending).
From Middle English longinge, langynge, from Old English longung, langung (“longing, desire”), from Proto-Germanic *langungō, gerund of Proto-Germanic *langōną (“to desire, long for”), equivalent to long + -ing (gerund ending).
Words formed from longing
Phrases with longing
Words that rhyme with longing
Questions about longing
- What does longing mean?
- Longing means an earnest and deep, not greatly passionate, but rather melancholic desire.
- What is longing the present participle and gerund of?
- Longing is the present participle and gerund of long.
- What part of speech is longing?
- Longing is a noun.
- How do you pronounce longing?
- Longing is pronounced /ˈlɒŋɪŋ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of longing?
- The plural of longing is longings.
Words near longing in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: longing (page history and authors); long (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-longing.ogg.
Cite this entry: “longing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/longing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.