Adjacent Words

Withered definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

WITHERED, pp. Faded; dried; shrunk.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness; "the old woman's shriveled skin"; "he looked shriveled and ill"; "a shrunken old man"; "a lanky scarecrow of a man with withered face and lantern jaws"-W.F.Starkie; "he did well despite his withered arm"; "a wizened little man with frizzy grey hair" [syn: shriveled, shrivelled, shrunken, withered, wizen, wizened]
2: (used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture; "dried-up grass"; "the desert was edged with sere vegetation"; "shriveled leaves on the unwatered seedlings"; "withered vines" [syn: dried-up, sere, sear, shriveled, shrivelled, withered]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Wither With"er, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Withered; p. pr. & vb. n. Withering.] [OE. wideren; probably the same word as wederen to weather (see Weather, v. & n.); or cf. G. verwittern to decay, to be weather-beaten, Lith. vysti to wither.] 1. To fade; to lose freshness; to become sapless; to become sapless; to dry or shrivel up. Shall he hot pull up the roots thereof, and cut off the fruit thereof, that it wither? --Ezek. xvii. 9. 2. To lose or want animal moisture; to waste; to pin? away, as animal bodies. This is man, old, wrinkled, faded, withered. --Shak. There was a man which had his hand withered. --Matt. xii. 10. Now warm in love, now with'ring in the grave. --Dryden. 3. To lose vigor or power; to languish; to pass away. ``Names that must not wither.'' --Byron. States thrive or wither as moons wax and wane. --Cowper.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Withered With"ered, a. Faded; dried up; shriveled; wilted; wasted; wasted away. -- With"ered*ness, n. --Bp. Hall.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. If you describe a person or a part of their body as withered, you mean that they are thin and their skin looks old. ...her withered hands. ADJ: usu ADJ n 2. Withered is used to describe someone's leg or arm when it is thin and weak because of disease or injury. She has one slightly withered leg, noticeably thinner than the other. ADJ: usu ADJ n

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

with'-erd (nabhel, "to fade away," "to be dried up"):

(1) Used figuratively to express leanness of soul, spiritual impotence, a low condition of spiritual life, a lack of moral nourishment: "My heart is smitten like grass, and withereth" (Ps 102:4). The contrasting figure emphasizes this idea: "All my fountains are in thee" (Ps 87:7). Also Ps 1:3, where the freshness and beauty of the righteous man's life are thus described: "And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water, .... whose leaf also doth not wither." In the New Testament xeraino, "to wither," is used to carry out the same idea of moral decay, or malnutrition of soul (Mt 13:6; 21:19).

(2) "Wither" also had a physiological meaning, expressing both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament the idea of bodily impotence, especially, though not exclusively, of the limbs. Jeroboam was struck suddenly with paralysis of the arm, which is said to have "dried up" (1Ki 13:4-6); "probably due to sudden hemorrhage affecting some part of the brain, which may under certain circumstances be only temporary" (HDB, 1-vol, 599). "Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered" (La 4:8).

In the New Testament (Mt 12:10; Mr 3:1; Lu 6:6) "withered hand" was probably our modern "infantile paralysis," which may leave one or more limbs shrunken and powerless without detriment to the general health.

Arthur Walwyn Evans

Moby Thesaurus

Sanforized, adust, anile, atrophied, attenuated, baked, brittle, burnt, cadaverous, consumed, corky, corpselike, crabbed, debilitated, decrepit, dehydrated, desiccated, doddered, doddering, doddery, dried, dried-up, emacerated, emaciate, emaciated, evaporated, exsiccated, feeble, fossilized, gerontal, gerontic, haggard, hollow-eyed, infirm, jejune, marantic, marasmic, mossbacked, moth-eaten, mummified, mummylike, palsied, papery, papery-skinned, parched, parchmenty, peaked, peaky, pinched, poor, preshrunk, puny, ravaged with age, rickety, run to seed, rusty, scorched, sear, seared, senile, sere, shaky, shriveled, shriveled up, shrunk, shrunken, skeletal, starved, starveling, stricken in years, sun-dried, sunbaked, tabetic, tabid, thin, timeworn, tottering, tottery, underfed, undernourished, wasted, wasted away, weak, weazened, weazeny, wilted, wind-dried, wizen, wizen-faced, wizened, wraithlike, wrinkled