longing

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of long

comparative more longing · superlative most longing

plural longings

1. An earnest and deep, not greatly passionate, but rather melancholic desire.

   all natural lovings and longings

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 132, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   1 more example

   For round the valley a great desert lies through which no common traveller may come, but those whom the gods have chosen feel suddenly a great longing at heart, and crossing the mountains that divide the desert from the world, set out across it driven by the gods, […]

   1906, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], Time and the Gods, London: William Heineman, →OCLC, page 2

2. The buying of a financial instrument with the expectation that its value will rise.