languid
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "languid", 7-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "languid" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "languid" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
languid is anEnglishadj. It means: Of a person or animal, or their body functions: flagging from weakness, or inactive or weak, especially due to illness or tiredness; faint, listless. Pronounced /ˈlæŋɡwɪd/.
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See how languid compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | languid |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /ˈlæŋɡwɪd/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #50,638 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for languid is 7 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈlæŋɡwɪd/. Corpus data places it at rank #50,638 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for languid in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Middle French languide (“fatigued, weak; apathetic, indifferent”) (modern French languide), or from its etymon Latin languidus (“faint, weak; dull; slow, sluggish; ill, sick, unwell; (figuratively) inactive, inert, listless”), from langueō (“t… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is languid, spelled L-A-N-G-U-I-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Of a person or animal, or their body functions: flagging from weakness, or inactive or weak, especially due to illness or tiredness; faint, listless.
- 2Of a person or their movement: showing a dislike for physical effort; leisurely, unhurried.
- 3Of a person or their actions, character, etc.: lacking drive, emotion, or enthusiasm; apathetic, listless, spiritless, unenthusiastic.
- 4Of a colour: not bright; dull, muted.
- 5Of an idea, writing, etc.: dull, uninteresting.
- 6Of a period of time: characterized by lack of activity; pleasant and relaxed; unstressful.
- 7Of a thing: lacking energy, liveliness, or strength; inactive, slow-moving, weak.
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French languide (“fatigued, weak; apathetic, indifferent”) (modern French languide), or from its etymon Latin languidus (“faint, weak; dull; slow, sluggish; ill, sick, unwell; (figuratively) inactive, inert, listless”), from langueō (“to be faint or weak; (figuratively) to be idle, inactive, or listless”) (from Proto-Indo-European *(s)leg-, *(s)leh₁g- (“to weaken”)) + -idus (suffix meaning ‘tending to’ forming adjectives). Doublet of languish. Cognates * Italian languido (“languid; languishing”) * Portuguese lânguido (“languid; listless”) * Spanish lánguido (“languid, weak”)
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #50,638 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: