linger on

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

to stay or remember something for a long time

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

ở lại hoặc nhớ một điều gì đó trong thời gian dài

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: to remain or stay on something
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The smell of smoke lingered on her clothes.

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “linger on” mean?

to stay or remember something for a long time Literally: to remain or stay on something

Is “linger on” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.