Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Shriveled, shrunken, or faded from or as if from loss of moisture or sustenance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Shriveled; faded.
  • Having withers (of this or that specified kind).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Faded; dried up; shriveled; wilted; wasted; wasted away.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Shrivelled, shrunken or faded, especially due to lack of water.
  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of wither.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture
  • adjective lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Passed _whole woods of withered pines, all withered_; trunks stripped and barkless, branches lifeless; done by a single winter [115], -- their appearance reminded me of me and my family.

    Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 6) With His Letters and Journals Thomas Moore 1815

  • Passed _whole woods of withered pines, all withered_; trunks stripped and lifeless, branches lifeless; done by a single winter. "[

    The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 17, No. 470, January 8, 1831 Various

  • _To a Skylark_, by P.B. Shelley, stanza iii. line 5.] [123] [ "Passed _whole woods of withered pines, all withered_; trunks stripped and barkless, branches lifeless; done by a _single winter_, -- their appearance reminded me of me and my family" (_Letters_,

    The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 4 George Gordon Byron Byron 1806

  • The fruits of Paradise are gone, the trees are bare ruined choirs, the sedge has withered from the lake and no birds sing as Shakespeare and Keats wrote in evoking the same feelings.

    On the Passing of Andrew Wyeth Linda 2009

  • The fruits of Paradise are gone, the trees are bare ruined choirs, the sedge has withered from the lake and no birds sing as Shakespeare and Keats wrote in evoking the same feelings.

    Archive 2009-01-01 Linda 2009

  • The Ancient Mariner's face grew suddenly bleak and fierce, and his right hand flashed out to Daughtry's wrist, prisoning it in withered fingers of steel.

    CHAPTER XIII 2010

  • The Ancient Mariner's face grew suddenly bleak and fierce, and his right hand flashed out to Daughtry's wrist, prisoning it in withered fingers of steel.

    Chapter 13 1917

  • These hang in withered mournfulness above this living image of their departed mother.

    Records of Woman, With Other Poems 1828

  • Hence it was called the withered hand, Mt 12: 10-13.

    Barnes New Testament Notes 1949

  • When an ordinary man speaks of a beautiful woman he certainly does not mean only that she moves him aesthetically; but when an artist calls a withered old hag beautiful he may sometimes mean what he means when he calls a battered torso beautiful.

    Art Clive Bell 1922

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