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Languid

Mood
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Describing a mood of dreamy, unhurried relaxation—often sensual or idle—marked by soft rhythms and a lack of urgency or tension.

Detailed Definition
Languid mood in poetry conveys a gentle lethargy or sensuous ease, often through flowing meter, soft vowels, and hazy imagery; it appears in decadent or pastoral verse—like Swinburne or early Tennyson—where time seems suspended, evoking summer afternoons, desire, or the pleasurable weight of inaction as a form of aesthetic resistance to urgency.
Example
Example in poetry:
In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Eliot’s speaker feels languid paralysis (“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”); In “Dover Beach,” Matthew Arnold’s tone is languid with weary resignation; Sylvia Plath’s “Tulips” conveys languid exhaustion in hospital recovery; Emily Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” descends with languid heaviness; In “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot’s “ Unreal City” evokes languid urban decay; In “Ode on Melancholy,” Keats contrasts languid sorrow with vibrant beauty.
Additional Notes
Languid mood suggests dreamy slowness or relaxed weariness; conveyed through flowing syntax, soft vowels, and hazy imagery—e.g., summer afternoon poems; related to placid, tranquil, and listless moods; can imply sensuality (as in Baudelaire) or gentle fatigue.
Also Known As
Sluggish Lazy Lethargic Dreamy Relaxed
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