a. Also 5 langorous, 6 Sc. langorius. [ad. OF. lango(u)reux, f. langor LANGUOR sb.]
† 1. Distressful, sorrowful, mournful. Obs.
1490. Caxton, Eneydos, iv. 20. Durynge the langorous tyme that polidorus tolde this vysion myserable.
1549. Compl. Scot., Epist. 1. Ane … medicyne … to cure … al the langorius desolat & affligit pepil. Ibid., vii. 70. Quhen this lady persauit hyr thre sonnis in that langorius stait.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. i. 9. Deare lady! how shall I declare thy cace, Whom late I left in languorous constraynt?
1834. Beckford, Italy, II. 295. Then succeeded some languorous tirannas.
2. Full of, characterized by, or suggestive of, languor (see LANGUOR sb. 4–5).
a. 1821. Keats, Sonn., The day is gone. Bright eyes, accomplish’d shape, and lang’rous waist.
1847. Tennyson, Princess, VII. 48. A medicine in themselves To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw The sting from pain.
1879. Mrs. Pattison, Renaissance Art Fr., viii. 258. The languorous sentiment of the Italian model was dispelled by the liveliness native to the French character.
1882. J. Payne, 1001 Nts., I. 155. Slender and sleepy-eyed, and languorous of gait.
1883. Lady Violet Greville, Keith’s Wife, II. 95. She threw killing glances from her languorous black eyes.
1886. Symonds, Renaiss. It., Cath. React. (1898), VII. xii. 200. The devotion of the cloister was becoming languorous and soft.
1887. [Anne Elliot], Old Man’s Favour, II. 286. The atmosphere was of exotic warmth, languorous and heavy with the rich scent of flowers from the wide-open doors of the conservatory adjoining.
Hence Languorously adv.
1857. Blackw. Mag., LXXXII. Aug., 222/2. The summer wanderer is tempted to … languorously listen to the multitudinous music of the birds and insects above and around.
1875. Howells, Foregone Concl., 25. The air … was here almost languorously warm.
1879. Athenæum, 24 May, 671/3. A portrait, half-length, of a young mother pillowed and draped in white, and languorously reposing in a crimson chair.
