Description environment, indent first line

Question

Is there a neat way to push the first line of an item in a description environment over to the right so that it is flush with the second line of the item?

I'm trying to define a LaTeX list environment that lines up with my quotes. The list items will be named, rather than numbered, and so I've been trying to use a description environment to do this. What I would like to get is this:

  Here is some regular text. Note the regular para-
graph indenting.

    Here is some text inside a default quote envir-
    onment.

Here is some regular text.

    Apples: Here is the first item.

    Oranges: Here is the second item. It wraps on-
    to a second line, and is flush with the first
    line about oranges.

Here is some more regular text.

I'm struggling to get this result. I've been playing around with enumitem, but without success (possibly my own fault - I've never been able to get my head around the enumitem spacing commands). If it comes to it, I can get the result using quote environments rather than any kind of list, but that's obviously not ideal.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

A suggestion with enumitem. The indent-length of 2\parindent is perhaps a little large, but that can of course be changed.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[textwidth=20em,showframe]{geometry} % yes, I borrowed this from Qrrbrbirlbel
\usepackage{enumitem}
\newlist{Description}{description}{1}
\setlist[Description]{labelindent=2\parindent,leftmargin=2\parindent}

\begin{document}
Here is some regular text.
Note the regular paragraph indenting.
\begin{quote}
    Here is some text inside a
    default quote environment.
\end{quote}
Here is some regular text.
\begin{Description}
    \item[Apples:] Here is the first item.

    \item[Oranges:] Here is the second item.
    It wraps onto a second line, and is
    flush with the first
    line about oranges.

    More paragraphing.
\end{Description}
Here is some more regular text.
\end{document}

Answer 2

Something like this?

Code

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[textwidth=20em,showframe]{geometry}
\newenvironment{Description}{\list{}{%
    \let\makelabel\descriptionlabel    % this comes from the original description environment
    \setlength{\rightmargin}{\leftmargin}% this comes from the original quote environment
    \setlength{\labelwidth}{0pt}%          this is new
    }}{\endlist}

\begin{document}
Here is some regular text.
Note the regular paragraph indenting.
\begin{quote}
    Here is some text inside a
    default quote environment.
\end{quote}
Here is some regular text.
\begin{Description}
    \item[Apples:] Here is the first item.

    \item[Oranges:] Here is the second item.
    It wraps onto a second line, and is
    flush with the first
    line about oranges.

    More paragraphing.
\end{Description}
Here is some more regular text.
\end{document}

Output