thirsting

Pluralthirstings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of thirst.

   Lost in the desert for two days, the travelers were thirsting and close to collapse.

   Thirsting for revenge, the exiled prince raised an army.

   Note

   With for it names what is wanted, and the want can belong to the body or to the mind: thirsting for water, thirsting for revenge. Standing alone it is usually literal, since a longing needs an object; travelers who were thirsting simply needed a drink. A participle phrase built on it can also open a sentence: thirsting for revenge, the prince raised an army.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The state of having a thirst for something; a deep longing or craving.

   The poems trace the restless thirstings of a young mind for meaning.

   No amount of success could quiet his thirsting for approval.

   Similarlonging, craving, yearning, hunger, desire

   Note

   In the plural it pictures a longing that comes back again and again. Jonathan Edwards's An Account of the Life of the Late Rev. David Brainerd (1749) sets present thirstings for God beside ardent outgoings of the soul, and the noun still carries something of that devotional ring. Like the verb form, it takes for to name what is longed for: God, meaning, approval.

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