Word.ws English Dictionary

longing for

longing for is the present participle and gerund of long for.

Meaning of long for

Verb

long for (third-person singular simple present longs for, present participle longing for, simple past and past participle longed for)

  1. (transitive) To have a desire for (a thing or an event).
    • He was the object of my affection; I longed for him to notice me.
    Synonyms:
    salivate over, yearn for, crave for, hanker after, sigh for
  2. (transitive) To miss (someone).
    • “I will stay now, if you bid me,” she replied, as low. “See, I am going to my mother, who longs for me as I for her. I will not go unless you let me.”1888, Tighe Hopkins, For Freedom, volume 2, page 104

See all 3 meanings of long for

Questions about longing for

What is longing for the present participle and gerund of?
Longing for is the present participle and gerund of long for.

Words near longing for in the dictionary

  1. longimanous
  2. longimetric
  3. longimetry
  4. longin'
  5. longing
  6. longing for
  7. longing mark
  8. longing marks
  9. longing off
  10. longing-mark
  11. longing-marks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: longing for (page history and authors); long for (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.

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Cite this entry: “longing for.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/longing_for. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.