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LANGUID
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Lacking spirit or liveliness
Example:
a hot languorous afternoon
Synonyms:
dreamy; lackadaisical; languid; languorous
Classified under:
Similar:
lethargic; unenergetic (deficient in alertness or activity)
Context examples:
"He put his name down for three dances, and I suppose he's coming for them. What a bore!" said Meg, assuming a languid air which amused Laurie immensely.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
What was the gallant grace of the Lynns, the languid elegance of Lord Ingram,—even the military distinction of Colonel Dent, contrasted with his look of native pith and genuine power?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The languid loungers of St. James’s were also the yachtsmen of the Solent, the fine riders of the shires, and the hardy fighters in many a wayside battle and many a morning frolic.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A something of languid indifference, or of that boasted absence of mind which Catherine had never heard of before, would occasionally come across her; but had nothing worse appeared, that might only have spread a new grace and inspired a warmer interest.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Her breath, her skin, her lips, all flattered Elinor with signs of amendment; and Marianne fixed her eyes on her with a rational, though languid, gaze.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
When she woke from the trance, she was cold, and exhausted, and languid; but her mind was all alert.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The languid stillness of the place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a perfect library of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to time, at little roadside inns of argument on the journey.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
And these were her longest speeches and clearest communications: the rest was only a languid “Yes, yes; very well; did you? did he? I did not see that; I should not know one from the other.”
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
I turned with loathing from the woman who could utter so unfeeling a speech to a person just saved, on the very edge of death; but I felt languid and unable to reflect on all that had passed.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
