1. Continuance for a long time in a settled and recognized position, rank, etc. Chiefly in phr. of long standing.
a. 1568. Ascham, Scholem., I. (Arb.), 34. Except a very fewe, to whom peraduenture blood and happie parentage, may perchance purchace a long standing vpon the stage.
1601. Sir W. Cornwallis, Ess., II. xxix. (1631), 36. Their discent … from families of long standings.
1678. Bunyan, Pilgr., I. (C.P.S.), 83. This Fair therefore is an Ancient thing, of long standing.
1713. Guardian (1756), I. xxix. 124. Mothers of long standing, undesigning maids, and contented widows.
1833. Ht. Martineau, Berkeley, I. ii. 24. A favorite of longer standing was in everybody’s thoughts for at least three weeks.
1844. Dickens, Mart. Chuz., xxiv. Thomas is a friend of mine, of rather long-standing.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xix. IV. 353. Between him and the licensers there was a feud of long standing.
2. attrib. or compound adj.
1866. S. B. James, Duty & Doctrine (1871), 20. The afflictions of many upright, deserving, poor, long-standing curates.
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, cxxxii. La Rogue … Had a long-standing little debt to pay.
1888. Burgon, Lives 12 Gd. Men, II. xi. 336. He determined to carry into effect a long-standing wish to have a parish ‘Mission.’
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 655. It [i.e., splenic enlargement] is greatest in long-standing cases.
1900. H. Bindloss, in Longman’s Mag., Dec., 139. They had a long-standing account to settle with those bush heathen for comrades stalked and shot or treacherously poisoned.
