prolong

Either a back-formation from prolongation, or from Old French prolonguer or porloignier, from Latin prōlongō, from prō + longō. Doublet of purloin.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɹəʊˈlɒŋ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɹoʊˈlɔŋ/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /pɹoʊˈlɑŋ/
• Rhymes: -ɒŋ
• Hyphenation: pro‧long

prolong (third-person singular simple present prolongs, present participle prolonging, simple past and past participle prolonged)

1. (transitive) To extend in space or length.
2. (transitive) To lengthen in time; to extend the duration of

   Synonym: draw out

   Complaining prolongs one’s pain.

   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

     The departure was not unduly prolonged. In the road Mr. Love and the driver favoured the company with a brief chanty running. “Got it?—No, I ain't, 'old on,—Got it? Got it?—No, 'old on sir.”

3. (transitive) To put off to a distant time; to postpone.

   The government shouldn't prolong deciding on this issue any further.

4. (intransitive) To become longer; lengthen.

• “prolong”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “prolong”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.