wither

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English widderen, also widren and wydderen,^[2][3][4] with the spelling wither dating from the 16th century.^[5][4] The Middle English verb appears to be a variant or a specialised use of wederen (“to expose to the weather”),^[6][4][7][8] from weder (“weather”),^[9][10] so that weather and this word were in origin one verb whose forms came to be used for different senses.^[11][12][6] The sources are not all so sure: the American Heritage Dictionary, Collins and Dictionary.com say "perhaps",^[13][14][15] Merriam-Webster says "probably akin",^[3] and the Middle English Dictionary calls the origin uncertain, though probably from the family of that verb.^[2] Compare German verwittern (“to become weather-beaten”).^[7][9][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a plant, to dry and shrivel: about 1400, in the poem Patience, which the OED dates to about 1380 in composition.^[6] Barnhart dates wydderen to probably about 1380 and the modern form to 1535,^[4] and Dictionary.com has the Middle English word from as early as 1250–1300.^[15]

Semantic evolution

Weekley took the original sense to be a change caused by exposure to the weather, so that a withered leaf and a weathered rock are parallel.^[16] A use close to that sense lasted for a time: of a crop, to be dried (about 1523 to 1573), and of clothes and the like, to be aired (1544–1615).^[6] The word spread from plants to bodies that shrink or lose vigour, before 1500,^[6] and figuratively to people and to things that decline or decay, from 1508.^[6][7] The transitive use, making something shrivel, follows in 1555,^[6][7] and is the first sense in Johnson (1755), who quotes Shakespeare's "Age cannot wither her".^[17] From 1600 it could mean destroying someone's vigour, and it is now used mostly in the hyperbole of blighting someone, as with a look.^[6][14] Tea-makers have used the verb since 1753 for drying the leaf before roasting, and the noun for the process since 1897.^[6][3] The phrase wither away took on a special sense in Marxist writing, of the state disappearing once it is no longer needed: the OED's first record is a 1919 translation of Lenin.^[6][11]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – of a plant, to dry and shrivel.^[6]
• before 1500 – of living things, to shrink or lose vigour.^[6]
• 1508 – figurative, to languish or decay.^[6]
• c. 1523 – of a crop, to be dried (obsolete by 1573).^[6]
• 1555 – transitive, to make a plant shrivel.^[6][7]
• 1599 – transitive, to make the body waste or wrinkle.^[6]
• 1600 – to destroy the vigour of; to blight.^[6]
• 1648 – noun, a disease of cows (obsolete by 1722).^[6]
• 1753 – to dry tea leaves before roasting.^[6]
• 1919 – wither away, of the state in Marxist theory.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. Especially of a plant, to dry up and shrivel; to wilt: The beans withered in the long drought.^[14][3][6]
2. Of the body, to become shrunken or lose vigour through age or disease.^[3][6][8]
3. To lose strength or freshness; to decline or fade, often with away: Their friendship withered once he moved abroad.^[14][3][6]
4. To cause to shrivel or to lose vitality.^[14][6]
5. To make someone feel small, especially with a scornful look.^[14][6]
6. To dry tea leaves before roasting.^[6][8]
7. wither on the vine: to perish for lack of attention.^[8]
8. wither away: in Marxist theory, of the state, to disappear as no longer necessary.^[6][8][11]

Noun

1. In tea manufacture, the process of withering.^[3][6][8]

Word family

• witheredness
• witherer
• witheringly
• unwitherable

Related words

• weather
• withers
• whither

Usage notes

An obsolete adjective wither, hostile or contrary, has a separate source, Old English wiþer, which is related to the preposition of the same form;^[6][8] the Shorter Oxford derives withers from it.^[8] In dialect, wither meant to mutter or whine in Scotland, Cheshire and Shropshire, and to drag on a miserable existence in Yorkshire.^[18] Dictionary.com lists it among words confused with whither and weather.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
14. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
16. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)