▪ I. pining, vbl. n.
(ˈpaɪnɪŋ)
[f. pine v. + -ing1.]
The action of the verb pine.
† 1. The infliction or undergoing of pain (bodily or mental); torment, torture; affliction, suffering.
| c 1175 Lamb. Hom. 97 Hi neren aferede of nane licamliche pinunge. c 1315 Shoreham Poems i. 1110 Ȝyf hys saule after hys deþe Soffrey harde pynynge. c 1460 Towneley Myst. xx. 499 My sawll is heuy agans the deth and the sore pynyng. 1530 Palsgr. 254/2 Pynyng of a man in prisone to confesse the trouthe, torture. |
2. Exhaustion or wasting away by suffering, disease, or want of food; starvation; languishing; intense longing (for something).
| a 1400 Sir Beues 86/1645 + 8 (MS. E.) Sende me mete & drynk..þou woost alle þyng, Al my nede and my pynyng. 1579 Spenser Sheph. Cal. Jan. 48 With mourning pyne I, you with pyning mourne. 1621 T. Williamson tr. Goulart's Wise Vieillard 99 Consumptions, or pynings away of the bodie. a 1656 Hales Gold. Rem. i. (1673) 245 One of them..resolved to die, by pining and abstaining from..sustenance. 1847 Bushnell Chr. Nurt. ii. iii. (1861) 286 The bitter pains and pinings of unsatisfied hunger. 1898 Allbutt's Syst. Med. V. 479 In pining..we note loss of water, loss of plasma, and loss of red corpuscles. |
b. spec. A disease of sheep, characterized by a wasting away of the body.
| 1804 in Trans. Highl. Soc. Scot. (1807) III. 404 Pining..is..most severe upon young sheep. 1846 J. Baxter Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4) II. 372 Two exterminating diseases, the pining and the foot-rot, neither of which was known in that district till the extermination of the moles. |
c. concr. pl. Results of pining or withering (in quot., withered or withering leaves).
| 1849 M. Arnold Dream, On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops On the red pinings of their forest floor. [Cf. Wordsw. Yew-Trees (1803) 22 A pillared shade, Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially.] |
3. attrib. † pining-stool, a stool for punishment, a cucking-stool; ˈpining-house, -lair, a place where animals for slaughter are previously shut up to fast; = hunger-house (hunger n. 4 e).
| c 1230 Hali Meid. 35 Þe care aȝain þi pinunge þrahen binimeð þe nihtes slepes. c 1315 Shoreham Poems i. 2202 He by-held hyne þer a set, Ryȝt atte hys pynyng stake. 1362 Langl. P. Pl. A. iii. 69 To punisschen on pillories or on pynnyng stoles [B. iii. 78 pynynge stoles] Brewesters, Bakers, Bochers and Cookes. 1802 Hull Advertiser 4 Dec. 2/2 Pining-house. 1875 Gainsburgh News 25 Sept., To be let..butcher's shop, with slaughter-house, pining-house, and every convenience. 1893 Whitby Gaz. 3 Nov. 3/6 In two instances the pining-lairs or hunger-houses are within the [butchers'] shops or open directly into them. |
▪ II. ˈpining, ppl. a.
[f. as prec. + -ing2.]
That pines (see the verb); † tormenting, afflicting (obs.); consuming, wasting; languishing.
| a 1240 Wohunge in Cott. Hom. 269 Al þat pinende pik ne walde ham þunche bote a softe bekinde bað. 1387–8 T. Usk Test. Love i. vi. (Skeat) I. 77 To dwelle in this pynande prison. 1583 Middlesex County Rec. I. 137 [Visitation of a certain infirmity called] the pining siknes. 1611 Bible Isa. xxxviii. 12 He will cut mee off with pining sicknesse. 1742 Gray Eton 65 Pining Love shall waste their youth. 1817 Coleridge Sibyll. Leaves, On revisiting Seashore iii, Fashion's pining Sons and Daughters. |
Hence ˈpiningly adv.
| 1561 T. Norton Calvin's Inst. i. 3 When the dull hardnesse, which y⊇ wicked do desirously labor to get to despise God withal, doth lie piningly in their hartes. 1821 Clare Vill. Minstr. I. 56 Small the wage he gains That many a child most piningly maintains. |