lingering

UK/ˈlɪŋɡəɹɪŋ/US/ˈlɪŋɡəɹɪŋ/

adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,800 of 15,258neutral

Lingering means staying on long after the source has gone. Smoke in a curtain, or a doubt that will not settle.

It suits smells, tastes, doubts and looks, and each of those gives a standard phrase: a lingering smell, a lingering doubt, a lingering look. The verb linger means to remain longer than expected, often unwillingly to leave, and lingering over a meal is a pleasure rather than a fault. Medicine uses it grimly, since a lingering illness is a slow one. The related word is long, and the sense of time stretching runs through all of it.

Definitions of lingering

1adjectivelingeringRemaining for a long time after the cause has gone.B2+
“There was a lingering smell of woodsmoke.”

Where it comes from

Proto-Germanic
*langijaną
Proto-West Germanic
*langijan
Old English
lenġan — to lengthen, delay, extend
Middle English
lengeren
English
linger
English, today
lingering

Built from

lengen · Middle English — to stay, dwell, tarry

From linger + -ing. linger comes from Middle English lengeren, frequentative of lengen (“to stay, dwell, tarry”), from Old English lenġan (“to lengthen, delay, extend”), from Proto-West Germanic langijan, from Proto-Germanic langijaną (compare West Frisian lingje (“to linger”), Dutch lengen, German längen, Icelandic lengja (“to lengthen”)), related to the root of long. Equivalent to linge or long + -er.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Smell & Taste

First appears in chapter 32 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

lingering in the wild

By the early 19th century, the tradition was all but forgotten, lingering as isolated incidents into the 1840s.
Cock throwing
Buddhism may have been introduced to the Maldives around the 3rd century BC and retained some lingering presence until the 14th to late 15th century.
Buddhism in the Maldives
Scholars such as Iravatham Mahadevan have tried to link the symbols directly to Indus Valley script or as derived due to lingering influence, whereas others such as K.
Megalithic graffiti symbols

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the lenġan family

linger lingering

lingering — used about once every 3,827 pages · #8,800 · point at the bar for the others

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