long

long vb Long, yearn, hanker, pine, hunger, thirst mean to have a strong and urgent desire for something.

One longs when one wishes for something, and especially something remote or not readily attainable, with one's whole heart or with great earnestness

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socialists who long to see the world a better place— Woodrow Wyatt

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ever have I longed to slake my thirst for the world's praises— Keats

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wretched sensitive beings like ourselves longing to escape— Powys

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in the midst of the finesse, and the artistry . . . one longs at times, not for less refinement but for more virility— Lowes

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One yearns when one regards or desires something with eager, restless, often tender or passionate longing

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but Enoch yearned to see her face again— Tennyson

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she gazed into his faded blue eyes as if yearning to be understood— Conrad

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dreamers who yearned for things that are not, for things to come or things that have been— Norman Douglas

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One hankers when one is possessed with or made uneasy by a desire because of the urgency of a physical appetite

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hanker for fresh fruit in the wintertime

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or because of such a passion as greed, lust, ambition, or covetousness

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she . . . still hankered, with a natural hankering, after her money— Trollope

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hankering from the start after the office of tribune— Buchan

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or for something beyond one's reach or one's powers even if only for the moment

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to wean your minds from hankering after false Germanic standards— Quiller-Couch

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too long a siege of the familiar . . . sets us hankering after the strange— Lowes

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But often hanker is weakened to the point that it means little if any more than want

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although collectors still hanker after the period pieces, the trend is for simplicity— Tomkinson

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one hankers after one's own order of comfort in advancing age— de la Mare

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One pines when one languishes or grows weak through longing for something or gives oneself up to fruitless longing for it

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we look before and after, and pine for what is not— Shelley

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Harry Temple was wise enough to give up pining after what he could not get— Besant & Rice

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Basically one hungers for food to satisfy an urgent craving for nourishment or for a particular kind of food essential to satisfy appetite, and similarly one thirsts for drink to satisfy an urgent need for liquid or for a particular kind of drink essential to satisfy appetite

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hunger for fresh vegetables

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thirst for cool fresh water

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In their extended senses one hungers or thirsts when one longs for something with the full force of one's being

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blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled—Mr 5:6

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she hungered for a new environment in which to expand her new powers— Ellis

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East Florida was a pawn in world conflict, a strategic bait for which many nations hungered— Hyman

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a savage, unprincipled brute who naturally thirsted to overturn a society— Plumb

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Analogous words: crave, *desire, wish, want, covet: pant, aspire, *aim