How to Use longing in a Sentence

longing

noun
  • She cast a look of longing at the shop window.
  • They looked with longing toward freedom.
  • She never told anyone about her secret longings.
  • The greater the truth, the greater the longing to know it, and the greatest truth of all is God.
    — Mike Kerrigan, WSJ, 21 Jan. 2022
  • There’s a lot of longing, there’s a lot of sorrow in the book.
    — James Factora, Them, 1 Nov. 2024
  • That longing to know more led to a road trip in the summer of 2019.
    — Audra D. S. Burch, New York Times, 15 Oct. 2022
  • The passion and longing in these songs are hard to shake.
    — Troy L. Smith, cleveland, 22 Jan. 2021
  • But looking back, many feel a longing for the God of War of old.
    — Diego Argüello, Rolling Stone, 22 Mar. 2025
  • The key shift here is to a tone laden with longing, even regret.
    — David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, 2 Dec. 2022
  • In this song about longing and love, the neo soul singer sounds like a warm hug on a rainy evening.
    — Christopher Rosa, Glamour, 26 Dec. 2020
  • Eid now is no longer a day of laughter, but a day of tears and longing.
    — Simone McCarthy, CNN, 14 Feb. 2023
  • The longing for fatherhood is the main tension of the book.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 20 May 2021
  • And the way the show was written, it’s about looking back with some longing.
    — James Hibberd, EW.com, 8 July 2020
  • Most of the tunes explored loss, longing and what can happen when the heart goes astray.
    — Bob Gendron, Chicago Tribune, 8 June 2022
  • Death, the past, art, longing, all of it sent whirling and made current by the two paintings.
    — Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2025
  • The same home movies of Christmas morning, the same longing glances across the bar, the same nostalgia, the same heartache.
    — Matt Brennan, Los Angeles Times, 20 Dec. 2023
  • Because the one thing that turns the world from the longing place to a beautiful place... is love.
    — Kelly O'Sullivan, Country Living, 30 Oct. 2020
  • Lewis tells stories through metaphor and the language of longing.
    — Hilton Als, The New Yorker, 19 Dec. 2022
  • The smell of the cigarette gave Frances a sudden longing.
    — Mary Costello, The New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2023
  • The six plays in the collection all have to do with love, the dreams that lead to love, the longing to connect and the courage to take a leap of faith.
    — Matthew J. Palm, orlandosentinel.com, 18 Nov. 2021
  • If the erotic thrillers of the past explored the dangers of lust, Park Chan-wook explores the risks of longing.
    — Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 14 Oct. 2022
  • From a young age, Spears felt dual longings to both hide and be seen.
    — Stephanie McNeal, Glamour, 24 Oct. 2023
  • But the longing, thankfully, isn’t due to some idea of a racial essence that grabs a hold of you and won’t let go.
    — Imani Perry, Harper's BAZAAR, 11 Nov. 2021
  • What makes malls the object of both longing and disdain?
    — Jillian Steinhauer, The New Republic, 22 Aug. 2022
  • By the numbers: There's a longing to find those spaces IRL.
    — Carrie Shepherd, Axios, 4 Mar. 2025
  • The vaguely bluesy folk songs courtesy of A.G. Cook put us in a place of longing from frame one.
    — Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 6 Dec. 2024
  • The work of Andrés Hernández deals, perhaps above all else, in the act of longing.
    — Seth Combs, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 Mar. 2022
  • There's the longing to write the great play, to write the great novel, and there's a fear involved there — the fear of trying and failing.
    — Jake Coyle, Star Tribune, 7 Dec. 2020
  • When war tears them apart, Fei spends a lifetime searching for Kai, her music echoing with memory and longing.
    — Jamie Lang, Variety, 15 Apr. 2025
  • The Brandy character in the end wants to keep a certain connection or longing, but that’s entirely limited.
    — Abbey White, HollywoodReporter, 15 Apr. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'longing.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: