- 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{
socialists who long to see the world a better place— Woodrow Wyatt
}{ever have I longed to slake my thirst for the world's praises— Keats
}{wretched sensitive beings like ourselves longing to escape— Powys
}{in the midst of the finesse, and the artistry . . . one longs at times, not for less refinement but for more virility— Lowes
}One yearns when one regards or desires something with eager, restless, often tender or passionate longing{but Enoch yearned to see her face again— Tennyson
}{she gazed into his faded blue eyes as if yearning to be understood— Conrad
}{dreamers who yearned for things that are not, for things to come or things that have been— Norman Douglas
}One hankers when one is possessed with or made uneasy by a desire because of the urgency of a physical appetite{hanker for fresh fruit in the wintertime
}or because of such a passion as greed, lust, ambition, or covetousness{she . . . still hankered, with a natural hankering, after her money— Trollope
}{hankering from the start after the office of tribune— Buchan
}or for something beyond one's reach or one's powers even if only for the moment{to wean your minds from hankering after false Germanic standards— Quiller-Couch
}{too long a siege of the familiar . . . sets us hankering after the strange— Lowes
}But often hanker is weakened to the point that it means little if any more than want{although collectors still hanker after the period pieces, the trend is for simplicity— Tomkinson
}{one hankers after one's own order of comfort in advancing age— de la Mare
}One pines when one languishes or grows weak through longing for something or gives oneself up to fruitless longing for it{we look before and after, and pine for what is not— Shelley
}{Harry Temple was wise enough to give up pining after what he could not get— Besant & Rice
}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{hunger for fresh vegetables
}{thirst for cool fresh water
}In their extended senses one hungers or thirsts when one longs for something with the full force of one's being{blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled—Mr 5:6
}{she hungered for a new environment in which to expand her new powers— Ellis
}{East Florida was a pawn in world conflict, a strategic bait for which many nations hungered— Hyman
}{a savage, unprincipled brute who naturally thirsted to overturn a society— Plumb
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
