linger
/ˈlɪŋɡə(r)/
1 intransitive to continue to exist for longer than expected The faint smell of her perfume lingered in the room.
linger on
The civil war lingered on well into the 1930s.
Collocations
adverb
preposition
2 intransitive (+ adv./prep.) to stay somewhere for longer because you do not want to leave; to spend a long time doing something She lingered for a few minutes to talk to Nick.
We lingered over breakfast on the terrace.
3 intransitive linger (on somebody/something) to continue to look at somebody/something or think about something for longer than usual His eyes lingered on the diamond ring on her finger.
He lingered on for several months after the heart attack.
Word Origin
Middle English (in the sense ‘dwell, abide’): frequentative of obsolete leng ‘prolong’, of Germanic origin; related to German längen ‘make long(er)’, also to long.
e.g.