long
Meanings
- Having much distance in space from one end to the other.
- Specifically, having much distance in a horizontal dimension (see also Usage Notes below).
- Travelling a great distance.
- Having a long penis.
- Travelling or extending too great a distance in space.
- Passing or landing ahead of or beyond the intended target or location.
- Going beyond the intended target.
- Having great duration.
- Seeming to last a lot of time, due to being boring, tedious, tiring, irksome, etc.
- Not short; tall.
- Possessing or owning stocks, bonds, commodities, or other financial instruments with the aim of benefiting from an expected rise in their value.
- Of a fielding position, close to the boundary (or closer to the boundary than the equivalent short position).
- A long vowel.
- A long syllable.
- A note formerly used in music, one half the length of a large, twice that of a breve.
- A long integer variable, twice the size of an int, two or four times the size of a short, and half of a long long.
- An entity with a long position in an asset; for example, a trader or investor possessing an amount of a company's shares.
- A long-maturity security, such as a ten- or twenty-year bond.
- Clipping of long vacation (“summer vacation”).
- Ellipsis of long bond paper.
- To take a long position in.
- Over a great distance in space.
- Over too great a distance, beyond the target.
- For a particular duration (specified by additional qualifying words accompanying it).
- For a long time.
- A long time (see usage notes).
- To await, aspire, desire greatly (something to occur or to be true).
- On account of, because of.
- To be appropriate to, to pertain or belong to.
- Abbreviation of longitude.
- To belong.
- A surname transferred from the nickname. Originally a nickname for a tall man.
- An unincorporated community in Columbia County, Washington, United States.
- A commune in Somme department, Hauts-de-France, France.
- A surname from Chinese.
- A county of Baoji, Shaanxi, China.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English long, lang, from Old English long, lang (“long, tall, lasting”), from Proto-West Germanic *lang, from Proto-Germanic *langaz (“long”), from Proto-Indo-European *dlongʰos (“long”). Cognates Cognate with Scots lang (“long”), Yola lhaung, long (“long”), North Frisian long, lung, lüng (“long”), Saterland Frisian loang (“long”), West Frisian lang (“long”), Cimbrian lång (“long”), Dutch, German, and Low German lang (“long”), Luxembourgish laang (“long”), Mòcheno lònk (“long”), Vilamovian łaong (“long”), Yiddish לאַנג (lang, “long”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk lang (“long”), Faroese and Icelandic langur (“long”), Swedish lång (“long”), Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌲𐌲𐍃 (laggs, “long”); also Latin longus (“long”) (whence French long (“long”), Italian lungo (“long”), Portuguese longo (“long”), Spanish luengo (“long”)), Ancient Greek δολιχός (dolikhós, “long; wearisome”), Albanian gjatë (“long; tall”), Latvian ilgs (“long”), Lithuanian ilgas (“long”), Belarusian до́ўгі (dówhi, “long”), Bulgarian дъ́лъг (dǎ́lǎg, “long”), Czech dlúhý (“long”), Macedonian долг (dolg, “long”), Polish długi (“long”), Russian дли́нный (dlínnyj, “lengthy, long”), до́лгий (dólgij, “long”), Serbo-Croatian ду̏г, dȕg (“long”), Slovak dlhý (“long”), Slovene dolg (“long”), Ukrainian до́вгий (dóvhyj, “long”), Ossetian даргъ (darǧ, “late”), Central Kurdish دێر (dêr), درەنگ (dreng, “late”), Northern Kurdish dereng (“late”), Persian دیر (dēr / dir, “late; long”), درنگ (derang, “delay”), Sanskrit दीर्घ (dīrgha, “long”) (whence Bengali দীর্ঘ (dirgho, “long; tall”), Dhivehi ދިގު (digu, “long, lengthy”), Kalasha driga, dríga (“long; tall”), Kholosi taɽgo (“long”), Khowar درونگ (drung, “long”), Hindi दीर्घ (dīrgh, “long; tall; weighty”), Nepali दिघो (digho, “stable”), Odia ଦୀର୍ଘ (dirgha, “long”), Sinhalese දිග (diga, “long”), Urdu دیرگھ (dīrgh, “long; tall; weighty”)), Kamkata-viri drëgeř, drëgëř, drëŋëň, dërëgeň (“long; tall”), Prasuni jigni (“long; tall”). The word shows the regular historical change of a to o before certain consonant clusters such as ng (compare with other examples in Middle and Modern English such as bond, song, throng, and wrong). The o-form may have also been reinforced by Old French long, from Latin longus, from the same Indo-European word. Doublet of lungo and lunge.