All 4 Uses of
wither
in
Hard Times
- They wouldn't crush and wither, if you please, sir.†
Chpt 1.2
- It was an old woman, tall and shapely still, though withered by time, on whom his eyes fell when he stopped and turned.†
Chpt 1.12 *
- Slackbridge, the orator, looked about him with a withering smile; and, holding out his right hand at arm's length (as the manner of all Slackbridges is), to still the thundering sea, waited until there was a profound silence.†
Chpt 2.4
- …thinking no innocent and pretty fancy ever to be despised; trying hard to know her humbler fellow-creatures, and to beautify their lives of machinery and reality with those imaginative graces and delights, without which the heart of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest physical manhood will be morally stark death, and the plainest national prosperity figures can show, will be the Writing on the Wall, — she holding this course as part of no fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or…†
Chpt 3.9
Definition:
-
(wither) to shrivel (wrinkle and contract -- usually from lack of water)
or:
to become weaker; or feel humiliated