Withered

ppl. a. Forms: 5–6 wyddred (Sc. 5 wydderit, 5–6 widderit), 6 wydred, widdered, wydderad, wyddurde, (wedred, Sc. vidthrid), wyth(e)red, withred (wethered), 6–7 witherd, 6– wither’d, withered. f. WITHER v.² + -ED¹.]

  1.  Of a plant, fruit, etc.: Shrivelled or shrunken through lack of moisture, and so deprived of its natural color, freshness or bloom; hence, of fields, or stretches of country, and gen.: Dried up arid.

c. 1470.  Henry, Wallace, VIII. 1037. Thar awld bulwerk I se off wydderyt ayk.

c. 1480.  Henryson, Two Mice, 222. Thir widderit peis and nuttis,… Will brek my teith. Ibid., Fox, Wolf, & Husb., xix. It will not win ȝow worth ane widderit neip.

1508.  Fisher, 7 Penit. Ps. cii. Wks. (1876), 148. Wedred grasse or hey.

1549.  Compl. Scot., vii. 70. The vidthrid barran feildis.

a. 1560.  Becon, Jewel of Joy, Pref., Wks. 1564, II. 2. A pece of grosse smokye bacon or saulte withered byefe.

1585.  T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy., III. xxi. 110. Manye desartes, sandye, wythered, vnfruitefull.

1609.  Shaks., Temp., I. ii. 463. Wither’d roots.

1637.  Rutherford, Lett. to M. Mowat, Sept. (1671), 166. Our Lord … shall water with his dew the withered hill of mount Zion in Scotland.

1682.  Dryden & Lee, Dk. Guise, I. i. To the bare Commons of the wither’d Field.

1710.  Lond. Gaz., No. 4777/4. A tall thin Man, with withered Hair.

1781.  Cowper, Conversat., 51. Wither’d stumps disgrace the sylvan scene.

1813.  Scott, Trierm., I. v. The wither’d leaves, That drop when no winds blow.

1861.  Mrs. Browning, Nature’s Remorses, x. Withered immortelles, long ago cut.

1864.  Tennyson, En. Ard., 676. But narrow breadth … Of wither’d holt or tilth.

  2.  Of men and animals: Physically shrunken, shrivelled, wasted or decayed; deprived of animal vitality or vigor.

a. 1500–34.  Cov. Corpus Christi Pl., i. 839. Sey ye, wyddurde wyvis, whydder are ye a-wey?

1509.  Hawes, Past. Pleas., XXIX. (Percy Soc.), 143. An olde wydred wiche.

1526.  Tindale, John v. 3. A greate multitude of sicke folke, off blynde, halt, and wyddered.

1588.  Shaks., L. L. L., IV. iii. 242. A withered Hermite, fiue-score winters worne.

1641.  Milton, Animadv., xiii. Wks. 1851, III. 233. They may as well sue for Nunneries, that they may have some convenient stowage for their wither’d daughters.

1700.  Rowe, Amb. Step-Mother, III. i. Marks which Years set on the wither’d Sage.

1868.  J. H. Blunt. Ref. Ch. Eng., I. 421. A poor withered skeleton of humanity.

  b.  Of the body, or parts of it: Shrivelled or shrunken, esp. by the wasting of disease or age. Formerly, and now colloq. or dial., often applied to a paralyzed limb.

1513.  [see WEARISH a. 2].

1526.  Tindale, Mark iii. 1. There was a man which had a widdred honde.

1697.  Dryden, Æneis, V. 644. Take the last Gift my wither’d Arms can yield.

1795–6.  Wordsw., Borderers, II. 890. Twice did I spring to grasp his withered throat.

1805.  Scott, Last Minstrel, Introd. 3. His wither’d cheek, and tresses gray.

1813.  J. Thomson, Lect. Inflam., 539. The part affected became at first insensible and cold, and, in the progress of the disorder, dry, hard, and withered.

1877.  Dowden, Shaks. Primer, vi. 79. So … fierce a human energy as that of Richard concentrated within one withered and distorted body.

1920.  H. G. Wells, Outl. Hist., 552/2. The figure of the new monarch [William II of Germany] … with a withered left arm ingeniously minimized.

  3.  fig. in immaterial sense: Deprived of or having lost vigor, freshness or ‘bloom’; shrunken and decayed; † formerly sometimes, reduced to poverty.

1561.  T. Hoby, trans. Castiglione’s Courtyer, II. Y iij. In my withered reasoninges.

1596.  Raleigh, Discov. Guiana, A 3 b. I am returned a begger, and withered.

1637.  Rutherford, Lett. to Parishioners, 13 July. The Lord will … make this withered Kirk, to bud again like a rose.

1782.  J. Brown, in R. Mackenzie, Life (1918), 237. Our sacrament is on the 5th Sabbath of June. Pray for our withered corner.

1810.  Scott, Lady of L., IV. xiii. Lay on him the curse of the wither’d heart.

1819.  Keats, Fall of Hyperion, I. 288. The pale Omega of a wither’d race.

1860.  Smiles, Self-Help, xi. 285. The blasé youth turns from his withered pleasures.

1865.  Dickens, Mut. Fr., II. xv. A grey dusty withered evening in London.

  † 4.  a. Worn out, ragged. Obs. rare.

c. 1480.  Henryson, Test. Cress., 165. His widderit weid fra him the wind out woir.

  † b.  = WEATHERED 1. Obs. rare.

1796.  Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), I. 348. Withered gneiss bas sometimes the appearance of a grey slaty mortar.

  c.  Tea-manuf. (see WITHER v.² 4 c).

1897.  D. Crole, Tea, vii. 117. Trolly loads of withered leaf.

  5.  Comb., as withered-looking adj.

1828.  Weekly Dispatch, 2 Nov., 8/2. Ram presented a withered-looking carcase—a leg about as stout as a broom-stick.

1849.  Eastwick, Dry Leaves, 179. His beard … stunted, tawny, and withered-looking.

  Hence Witheredly adv., in a withered manner; Witheredness, the condition of being withered; rarely concr. a withered part.

1535.  Coverdale, Isa. iii. 24. And for their bewty wythrednesse and sonneburnynge.

1621.  T. Williamson, trans. Goulart’s Wise Vieillard, 24. Old age … the unweldinesse or witherednesse of the body.

1658.  A. Fox, Würtz’ Surg., III. xxiii. 293. That witheredness caused by a fall … I have annointed twice a day.

1659.  Torriano, Witheredly, seccamente.

1722.  J. Willison, Five Sacr. Serm., Wks. (1852), 313/2. There usually follows, on God’s withdrawing, great witheredness and barrenness on the souls of his people.

1883.  G. Macdonald, Princess & Curdie, iii. Every trace of the decrepitude and witheredness she showed as she hovered like a film about her wheel, had vanished.