verb [V]
1 ~ (on) to continue to exist for longer than expected:
The faint smell of her perfume lingered in the room. * The civil war lingered on well into the 1930s.
2 [usually +adv./prep.] to stay somewhere for longer because you do not want to leave; to spend a long time doing sth:
She lingered for a few minutes to talk to Nick. * We lingered over breakfast on the terrace.
3 ~ (on sb/sth) to continue to look at sb/sth or think about sth for longer than usual:
His eyes lingered on the diamond ring on her finger.
4 ~ (on) to stay alive but become weaker:
He lingered on for several months after the heart attack.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for linger is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Does linger appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — linger appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.