different between longing vs athirst

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?l????/
• Rhymes: -????
• (US) IPA^(key): /?l?????/

Etymology 1

From Middle English longynge, langynge, langand, from Old English langiende, from Proto-Germanic *lang?ndz, present participle of Proto-Germanic *lang?n? (“to desire, long for”), equivalent to long +? -ing (present participle ending).

Verb

longing

1. present participle of long

Etymology 2

From Middle English longinge, langynge, from Old English longung, langung (“longing, desire”), from Proto-Germanic *langung?, gerund of Proto-Germanic *lang?n? (“to desire, long for”), equivalent to long +? -ing (gerund ending).

Noun

longing (plural longings)

1. An earnest and deep, not greatly passionate, but rather melancholic desire.
2. The buying of a financial instrument with the expectation that its value will rise

Synonyms

• yearning

Related terms

• long

Translations

See also

• desire
• miss

English

Etymology

Old English ofþyrst, past participle of ofþyrstan (“to smart from thirst”), equivalent to a- (“of”, Etymology 8) +? thirst (verb).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?????st/
• Rhymes: -??(?)st

Adjective

athirst (comparative more athirst, superlative most athirst)

1. (archaic) Thirsty.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 1,^[1]

     Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

2. (figuratively) Eager or extremely desirous (for something).
   • 1817, John Keats, “Sonnet (Written on a blank space at the end of Chaucer’s tale of ‘The Floure And The Leafe’”^[2]

     I, that forever feel athirst for glory,

     Could at this moment be content to lie

     Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings

     Were heard of none beside the mournful robins.

   • 1878, Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Ave Atque Vale (In Memory of Charles Baudelaire)” in Poems and Ballads, Second Series, Stanza IV,^[3]

     O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping,

     That were athirst for sleep and no more life

     And no more love, for peace and no more strife!

   • 1913, Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener, translated from the Bengali by the author, 5,^[4]

     I am restless. I am athirst for far-away things.

     My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance.

Anagrams

• ratshit, rattish, tartish, tirthas