Languor was once a word for sickness and misery — the Romantic poets reinvented it as a state of exquisite, pleasurable weariness, turning a disease symptom into a luxury.
A state of pleasant tiredness or dreamy inactivity; a lack of energy or vitality; an oppressive stillness of the air.
From Old French languor (weakness, languishing), from Latin languor (faintness, weariness, listlessness), from languēre (to be faint, to be weary, to be languid), from PIE *sleh₁g- or *leng- (slow, slack, languid). Key roots: languēre (Latin: "to be faint, to droop, to be languid").
Languor underwent a remarkable tonal shift in English. In medieval usage, it was entirely negative — meaning sickness, weakness, and suffering. The Romantic poets of the 18th-19th centuries transformed it into something desirable: a state of exquisite, pleasurable weariness associated with sensual experience, warm afternoons, and dreamy contemplation. Keats, Byron, and the