languish [ME] Early senses included ‘become faint, feeble, or ill’; in the early 18th century it came to mean ‘assume a languid or sentimentally tender expression’ and was aptly applied to Sheridan’s character Lydia Languish in The Rivals performed for the first time in 1775. The word goes back to Latin laxus ‘loose, lax’ found also in lax [LME], relax [LME] where the re- intensifies the sense; relay [LME], release [ME], and laxative [LME] something that loosens the bowels. See slake.