Library / English Dictionary

WITHER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Wither, as with a loss of moisture

Example:

The fruit dried and shriveled

Synonyms:

shrink; shrivel; shrivel up; wither

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "wither" is one way to...):

decrease; diminish; fall; lessen (decrease in size, extent, or range)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "wither"):

atrophy (undergo atrophy)

blast (shrivel or wither or mature imperfectly)

die back; die down (suffer from a disease that kills shoots)

dry up; mummify (dry up and shrivel due to complete loss of moisture)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Lose freshness, vigor, or vitality

Example:

Her bloom was fading

Synonyms:

fade; wither

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "wither" is one way to...):

disappear; go away; vanish (get lost, as without warning or explanation)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s

Derivation:

withering (any weakening or degeneration (especially through lack of use))

Credits

 Context examples: 

"It sounded as if you were praying," she said bravely, but she felt herself inside to be withering and shrinking.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

His hair and whiskers were shot with grey, and his face was all crinkled and puckered like a withered apple.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mr. Summerlee, the veteran Professor of Comparative Anatomy, rose among the audience, a tall, thin, bitter man, with the withered aspect of a theologian.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The regular flowers have five short, subequal, entire, imbricate, basally connate sepals, and five persistent-withering yellow petals.

(Hypericum perforatum, NCI Thesaurus)

I gnashed my teeth upon him with a gust of devilish fury; and the smile withered from his face—happily for him—yet more happily for myself, for in another instant I had certainly dragged him from his perch.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

But Amy had not forgotten Miss Snow's cutting remarks about 'some persons whose noses were not too flat to smell other people's limes, and stuck-up people who were not too proud to ask for them', and she instantly crushed 'that Snow girl's' hopes by the withering telegram, You needn't be so polite all of a sudden, for you won't get any.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Delighted with her progress, and fearful of wearying her with too much wisdom at once, Henry suffered the subject to decline, and by an easy transition from a piece of rocky fragment and the withered oak which he had placed near its summit, to oaks in general, to forests, the enclosure of them, waste lands, crown lands and government, he shortly found himself arrived at politics; and from politics, it was an easy step to silence.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Keep this near your heart—as he spoke he lifted a little silver crucifix and held it out to me, I being nearest to him—put these flowers round your neck—here he handed to me a wreath of withered garlic blossoms—for other enemies more mundane, this revolver and this knife; and for aid in all, these so small electric lamps, which you can fasten to your breast; and for all, and above all at the last, this, which we must not desecrate needless.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Where any of these wanted fortunes, I would provide them with convenient lodges round my own estate, and have some of them always at my table; only mingling a few of the most valuable among you mortals, whom length of time would harden me to lose with little or no reluctance, and treat your posterity after the same manner; just as a man diverts himself with the annual succession of pinks and tulips in his garden, without regretting the loss of those which withered the preceding year.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)