Also 3–6 north. langing. [OE. langung, f. langian LONG v.1]
1. The action of LONG v.1; yearning desire; an instance of this. Const. for, after, † to, † of; also with inf.
971. Blickl. Hom., 131. Ne mæʓ þæt na beon þæt þa bearn þe unbliþran ne syn, & langunga nabban æfter þæm freondum.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 27. Þe godfrihte … habbeð longinge to heuene.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 190. Oðer one deies longunge, oðer a sicnesse of ane stunde.
1390. Gower, Conf., III. 309. Youre oghne liege men … That live in longinge and desir Til ye be come ayein to Tyr.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 9154. A fell arow … of loue … Made hym langwys in Loue & Longynges grete.
c. 1500. Melusine, xxi. 119. I haue grete langyng to approche nygh the paynemys.
1598. Bacon, Relig. Medit., Ess. (Arb.), 113. As if they were euer children and beginners, they are still in longing for things to come.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., V. ii. 284. Giue me my Robe, put on my Crowne, I haue Immortall longings in me.
1611. Bible, Ps. cxix. 20. My soule breaketh for the longing: that it hath vnto thy iudgements at all times.
1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 511. Fierce desire,… Still unfulfill’d with pain of longing pines.
1713. Addison, Cato, V. i. Whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality?
1748. Anson’s Voy., II. xiii. 378. Our native country, for which many of us by this time began to have great longings.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xxii. 160. Sometimes … when a guide was in front of me, I have felt an extreme longing to have a second one behind me.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt (1868), 22. The return was still looked for with longing.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 436. They will have a fierce secret longing after gold and silver.
2. spec. in Path. The fanciful cravings incident to women during pregnancy. Chiefly pl.
1552. Elyot, Dict., Citta, is also the affection of longing in women with childe.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 157. The longings and imaginations of women with childe.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., III. iii. 237. I haue a womans longing, An appetite that I am sicke withall.
1799. M. Underwood, Dis. Children (ed. 4), II. 227. There is certainly nothing that we know of in a fright or longing that can produce such a change in organized matter.
1812. Sporting Mag., XXXIX. 7. He had … a pregnant wife, to satisfy whose longings, and to prevent any deformity of the child, he had ventured to trespass by shooting a hare.
b. attrib.: longing mark, a birth-mark, nævus (popularly supposed to be the impressed image of some object ‘longed for’ by the mother).
1644. Digby, Nat. Bodies, xxxviii. 335. The longing markes which are often times seene in children, and do remaine with them all their life.
