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wither
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wither as in: wither on the vine

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • Without water, the plants in the garden began to wither and die.
    wither = shrivel (wrinkled as they dried out)
  • His lips were cracked and felt as if they were bleeding and if he did not drink some water soon he felt that he would wither up and die.   (source)
    wither = dry out
  • Only the crest of the Giant's face was still visible, and it was white bone, like limestone protruding from a discouraged, withering mountain.   (source)
    withering = shriveling (deteriorating)
  • Because Morrie sat in the wheelchair, the camera never caught his withered legs.   (source)
    withered = shriveled (shrunken and weakened)
  • If Beatty so much as breathed on them, Montag felt that his hands might wither, turn over on their sides, and never be shocked to life again; they would be buried the rest of his life in his coat sleeves, forgotten.   (source)
    wither = weaken, and get smaller
  • The withered mummy shuffled forward in her rainbow dress.   (source)
    withered = dried out
  • Small, withered women, skin creased over onto itself; dark, life-weary eyes that had seen everything.   (source)
    withered = shriveled (wrinkled and shrunken)
  • It floated on the grass instead of walking, and the grass seemed to wither beneath it.   (source)
    wither = dry out
  • He opened his pouch and drew out some withered leaves.   (source)
    withered = shriveled (wilted, dried up)
  • In the stained-glass window, the lovely rose changed before our eyes into a ghostly specter of my daughter's misshapen and withered arm.   (source)
    withered = shriveled and weakened
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show 49 more with this conextual meaning
  • The long copper frame was withered like an old tree and one hand lay limp on the dirt floor.   (source)
    withered = shriveled (wrinkled and shrunken)
  • He could see Meo's garden patch, weedy but still with the mark of Meo's hand upon it, withering in the searing heat.   (source)
    withering = drying out
  • sometimes there will be a withered leg or a blind eye or a crumpled back.   (source)
    withered = weakened
  • Her right arm had been horribly burned and she grew up with its skin withered and purple.   (source)
    withered = shriveled (wrinkled and/or shrunk)
  • on the withered fingers   (source)
    withered = shriveled (wrinkled)
  • It is a flame spirit in you ever gathering more of itself, While you, heedless of its expansion, bewail the withering of your days.   (source)
    withering = shrinking
  • Bobbie planted rose-bushes in her garden, but all the little new leaves of the rose-bushes shrivelled and withered, perhaps because she moved them from the other part of the garden in May, which is not at all the right time of the year for moving roses.   (source)
    withered = dried up
  • The moment his fingers touched them they became strangely withered and dried up as with a week's sunshine.   (source)
    withered = shriveled (wrinkled)
  • Malfoy glanced witheringly at Percy.†   (source)
  • HERMIONE looks witheringly at RON: RON takes the hit.†   (source)
  • She looks witheringly around the room—which is not dusty—and Carol blushes.†   (source)
  • Jace said witheringly.†   (source)
  • Tiurin looked at him witheringly.†   (source)
  • "Hardly a special talent," ter Borcht said witheringly.†   (source)
  • ANNIE [WITHERINGLY]: Giving up.†   (source)
  • It looks dreadfully withered,   (source)
    withered = weakened
  • And all the temples, towers, palaces, pyramids, and bridges cast long, disastrous-looking shadows in the light of that withered sun.   (source)
  • The big cottonwoods beside the house withered and seemed to shrink and curl, and flames crept up their big limbs like hungry red tongues.   (source)
    withered = shriveled (shrank and dried out)
  • The weedy garden withered as though under a sudden frost, and the tall weeds crumpled and fell and the whole garden disappeared, leaving only a patch of charred ground.   (source)
    withered = shriveled (shrank)
  • Soon he would set all the shoreland woods ablaze and wither every field and pasture.   (source)
    wither = dry the life out of
  • The dragon has withered all the pleasant green, and anyway the night has come and it is cold.   (source)
    withered = dried the life out of
  • The wind was on the withered heath, but in the forest stirred no leaf:   (source)
    withered = suffering from lack of water
  • This is something like it: The dragon is withered, His bones are now crumbled; His armour is shivered, His splendour is humbled!   (source)
    withered = weakened
  • A short distance away, at a week-old grave, some men were stripping the withered flowers from the wire frames of the floral pieces heaped on the grave.   (source)
    withered = shriveled (dried out)
  • ' "Important stories he thinks the public needs to know", eh?' she said witheringly.†   (source)
  • "Don't be a fool," Ty said witheringly.†   (source)
  • "And, of course, that is all that matters," said Clara witheringly.†   (source)
  • The baker having been, by the counsel for Miss Rugg, witheringly denounced on that occasion up to the full amount of twenty guineas, at the rate of about eighteen-pence an epithet, and having been cast in corresponding damages, still suffered occasional persecution from the youth of Pentonville.†   (source)
  • But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd
    Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
    Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.   (source)
    withering = shriveling (wrinkling, contracting, and drying out from age)
  • In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.†   (source)
    standard suffix: Today, the suffix "-eth" is replaced by "-s", so that where they said "She withereth" in older English, today we say "She withers."
  • CHAPTER XXII — "The Grass Withereth—the Flower Fadeth"†   (source)
  • 8:12 Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb.†   (source)
  • 90:6 In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.†   (source)
  • 129:6 Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up: 129:7 Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom.†   (source)
  • The Pallid Wreath
    Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is,
    Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,
    With pink, blue, yellow, all blanch'd, and the white now gray and ashy,
    One wither'd rose put years ago for thee, dear friend;
    But I do not forget thee.†   (source)
  • A vengeance on your crafty wither'd hide!†   (source)
  • Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag.†   (source)
  • I, an old turtle, Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there My mate, that's never to be found again, Lament till I am lost.†   (source)
  • A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born, And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.†   (source)
  • Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John; But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown From this bare wither'd trunk: upon thy sight My worldly business makes a period.†   (source)
  • — O, wither'd is the garland of the war, The soldier's pole is fallen: young boys and girls Are level now with men: the odds is gone, And there is nothing left remarkable Beneath the visiting moon.†   (source)
  • — [To FERDINAND] Come; I'll manacle thy neck and feet together: Sea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be The fresh-brook mussels, wither'd roots, and husks Wherein the acorn cradled.†   (source)
  • —There's a daisy:—I would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father died:—they say he made a good end,— [Sings.]†   (source)
  • First, good Achates, with repeated strokes Of clashing flints, their hidden fire provokes: Short flame succeeds; a bed of wither'd leaves The dying sparkles in their fall receives: Caught into life, in fiery fumes they rise, And, fed with stronger food, invade the skies.†   (source)
  • And your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears; it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a wither'd pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a wither'd pear.†   (source)
  • Then be your eyes the witness of their evil: Look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm Is, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up: And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch, Consorted with that harlot-strumpet Shore, That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.†   (source)
  • I hope thou art not mad: This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd, And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.†   (source)
  • Eryx, accept a nobler sacrifice; Take the last gift my wither'd arms can yield: Thy gauntlets I resign, and here renounce the field.†   (source)
  • Yet you are wither'd.†   (source)
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wither as in: her confidence withered

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  • As the disease progressed, her once strong muscles began to wither and she struggled to even lift a glass of water.
    wither = weaken
  • Now, away from that ocean, in the confines of a hospital bed, his body began to wither like a beached fish.   (source)
  • My fury was gone, I felt it gone, dried up at the source, withered and lifeless.   (source)
    withered = weakened
  • He then dropped on me a withering two-syllable "duh."   (source)
    withering = weakening the spirit, or humiliating
  • And yet, each would wither in my arms the very night of their birth.   (source)
    wither = weaken
  • But months after my 18th birthday, the recession hit, gas prices shot up, my savings withered and the reality of going nowhere fast hit me in the face.   (source)
    withered = shrank
  • Your body will wither and die, and still the Oracle's spirit will be locked inside you.   (source)
    wither = weaken
  • All that is gold does not glitter,
    Not all those who wander are lost;
    The old that is strong does not wither,
    Deep roots are not reached by the frost.   (source)
  • Another time perhaps, although some things are better left to blossom in memory rather than wither in reflection.   (source)
  • It was absolute misery to come back into the withering coldness.   (source)
    withering = causing weakness
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show 12 more with this conextual meaning
  • Bonaparte's condescending attitude was outrageous, but before Frederic could utter the withering retort that was just on the tip of his tongue, La Fayette laughed aloud.   (source)
    withering = intended to humiliate (weaken the spirit)
  • The war touched the Model Press Clipping Bureau with its mailed finger and made it wither away.   (source)
    wither = weaken and become smaller until it disappeared
  • Perks sat down heavily in the elbow-chair and looked at them with what Bobbie afterwards described as withering glances of gloomy despair.   (source)
    withering = making the spirit weaker
  • When one speaks, they all begin together, and it's enough to make one wither to hear the way they go on!   (source)
    wither = become weak
  • Many hopes will wither in this bitter Spring.   (source)
    wither = become weaker
  • One withers, another grows.   (source)
    withers = becomes weaker
  • But hidden within it was the entire text of both Napoleon's and Frederic's letters, to be published to withering effect as soon as the news of French defeat reached Paris.   (source)
    withering = severely weakening the opposition
  • On the threshold sat an old man, aged beyond guess of years; tall and kingly he had been, but now he was withered as an old stone.   (source)
    withered = weakened
  • ...hope seemed to wither.   (source)
    wither = become weaker
  • May his beard wither!   (source)
    wither = become weaker and smaller
  • May the Shire live for ever unwithered!   (source)
    unwithered = not weakened
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unwithered means not and reverses the meaning of withered. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • WILLY [after a pause, withering]:   (source)
    withering = becoming weaker
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show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • On the ropy cloud, he drew two figures—a thin girl and a withering Jew—and they were walking, arms balanced, toward that dripping sun.†   (source)
  • But when he and his father came over to our side of the room and I saw Kamal's face, really saw it...He had withered—there was simply no other word for it.†   (source)
  • A dusty gold crown glinted on his withered head.†   (source)
  • A glass case nearby held a withered hand on a cushion, a bloodstained pack of cards, and a staring glass eye.†   (source)
  • Virtually no subcutaneous fat remained on the body, and the muscles had withered significantly in the days or weeks prior to death.†   (source)
  • Their bodies, burned by the sun and stained yellow from the raft dye, had withered down to skeletons.†   (source)
  • Next he turned his withering gaze upon the forlorn foreman.†   (source)
  • His sarcasm was withering, at least to me: Laura frequently thought he meant exactly what he said, which angered him further.†   (source)
  • He stroked her withers and scratched her on the chest behind her elbow and ran his hand along her belly.†   (source)
  • If they were very lucky, the man with the withered arm might even raise it—the arm—and wave to them.†   (source)
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show 190 more examples with any meaning
  • She gives me a withering look.†   (source)
  • Someone else was looking back at me—sunken cheeks with a shaved stubble of hair atop a withered head, ribs sticking out with skin that hung in wrinkled sacks from my arms.†   (source)
  • I wanted to be a professional puppy-player-wither, which at the time seemed eminently reasonable.†   (source)
  • Older, more withered, but definitely the same evil face.†   (source)
  • I continued throwing excuses at Justin but started to wither under the heat of his glare.†   (source)
  • But when Will introduces me to Cara, his older sister, she gives me the kind of look that would wither a plant and does not extend her hand for me to shake.†   (source)
  • The Son mutters, "May you never bear fruit again," and instantly the fig tree withers.†   (source)
  • Water spilled along his withered cheeks and down his neck.†   (source)
  • Over the course of twelve years, his flesh and soul withered until he knew he had become transparent.†   (source)
  • I raced inside to show my mom, and after a brief moment of blinking at them, she withered into a chair.†   (source)
  • Thomas felt his elation wither, and he stepped back and turned toward the Hole.†   (source)
  • On their second day, a withered phrenologist gives a presentation to the entire student body.†   (source)
  • "Everybody knows," said Scarlett, with withering scorn.†   (source)
  • The lump of his form was so withered that I almost thought there was something missing.†   (source)
  • Minerva's smile withered to a pout.†   (source)
  • Since then he had withered rapidly.†   (source)
  • I know from experience that some things will thrive and others will wither.†   (source)
  • Their leaves seemed to be withering, shriveling.†   (source)
  • Her father gave her a withering look.†   (source)
  • She'd withered up, wilted, gotten tangled in her own best intentions.†   (source)
  • There was still a lot of snow on the ground that spring—old, dead-gray snow—and I was opening another beer for Dan and myself in the kitchen at 80 Front Street, when I happened to look out the kitchen window at the withered rose garden, and there was Mr. Meany!†   (source)
  • She lifted her head to give him a withering glare, but everything spun, dragging her down with it, and she retched again.†   (source)
  • Blackly he reposes, tender face the color of soot, withered limbs like veins of coal, feet lumps of driftwood hung with shriveled grapes!†   (source)
  • Underneath their painted leather vests, their withered dugs swayed back and forth, shiny with oil and sweat.†   (source)
  • Annemarie gave him a withering look.†   (source)
  • "I think we ought to bomb the daylights out of them, as long as we don't hit any women or children or old people, don't you?" he was saying to Mrs. Patch-Withers, perched nervously behind her urn.†   (source)
  • In the morning he went back to his farm and saw the withering tendrils.†   (source)
  • Because a philodendron plant my father had given her had withered and died, despite the fact that she watered it faithfully.†   (source)
  • It was in a sorry state, withered and puckered.†   (source)
  • The sea daisies that I laid under the vents are still there, untouched, but they've already withered and died.†   (source)
  • She was no one's aunt particularly, or rather, she was Mr. Tallis's dead second cousin's aunt, but no one questioned her right, after her retirement, to the room on the second floor where, for most of their childhoods, she had been a sweet-natured, bedridden invalid who withered away to an uncomplaining death when Cecilia was ten.†   (source)
  • These castles were about one foot high and were decorated with shells, withered flowers, and interesting stones.†   (source)
  • Her defenses withered a bit upon encountering the openness in his brown eyes.†   (source)
  • The Patriarch of Antioch appeared briefly in the sky—and waved his withered hand.†   (source)
  • Cut off from supplies, with no means to marshal any significant fighting force, eventually this camp—and any others out there like it—will wither and die, like a vine cut off from its roots.†   (source)
  • The brown withered leaves of the oak trees hung motionless from the branches.†   (source)
  • Flowers withered, insects shrivelled and fish died in their tanks.†   (source)
  • HERMIONE shoots RON a withering look as she aims to hit him but RON jumps out of the way.†   (source)
  • He lived way up on Adam Clayton Powell, a few blocks from the last stop on the 3 line, but there was a bar called Brother J's where we sometimes met on 110th: a workingman's dive with Bill Withers on the jukebox and a sticky floor, career alcoholics slumped over their third bourbon at two p.m. But Jerome did not sell pharmaceuticals in increments of less than a thousand dollars and though I knew he would be perfectly glad to let me have a few bags of smack it seemed like a lot less trouble if I just went ahead and took a cab straight down to the Brooklyn Bridge.†   (source)
  • Even the bees seem drunk in the heat, circling slowly, colliding, hitting up against the withering flowers before thudding to the ground, then starting dazedly back into the air.†   (source)
  • Amy was clever, withering, sarcastic.†   (source)
  • The monsters on the opposite shore-where he had stood only moments beforefell beneath a withering hail of arrows from crevasses that pockmarked the cliff.†   (source)
  • The real Alyss tilted her head in a certain way and the attacking bouquet wadded up, strangled itself, withered, and died.†   (source)
  • Some cry for milk as a mama presses a needle through a withered vein on her arm.†   (source)
  • His first earned purchase made him glow, never mind the turnips were withered dry.†   (source)
  • eyes and sees......the great thorn of steel rising from between Moneta's breasts, almost impaling him as he unconsciously pulls up and back, the thornblade drawing blood which drips on her flesh, her pale flesh, reflective now, flesh as cold as dead metal, his hips still moving even as he watches through passion-dimmed eyes as Moneta's lips wither and curl back, revealing rows of steel blades where teeth had been, metal blades slash at his buttocks where fingers had gripped, legs like powerful steel bands imprison his pumping hips, her eyes......in thelast seconds before orgasm Kassad tries to pull away...his hands on her throat, pressing...she clings like a leech, a lamprey ready to drai†   (source)
  • Like every nerve in my body was withering in, pulling away from my fingers and toes.†   (source)
  • Most Labs are about two feet tall in the withers, or top of the shoulders, and the typical male weighs sixty-five to eighty pounds, though some can weigh considerably more.†   (source)
  • Expectations, evaluations, internal evasions
    Fly out of me like puddles of blood from a wound
    A fetus from the womb of a corpse in a tomb
    Withered and strewn like red sheets on the bed
    Of an immaculate room.†   (source)
  • Flowers that grow where old ones have withered serve to remind us that death will one day come to us all.†   (source)
  • The cold January wind blew in my face or drove me on, rustling the paper in which the dead were wrapped, lifting it to expose naked, withered shins, sunken bellies, faces with teeth bared and eyes staring into nothing.†   (source)
  • The petunias in her window box, planted Memorial Day weekend, the last time Gogol and Sonia were home together, have withered to shuddering brown stalks that she's been meaning, for weeks, to root from the soil.†   (source)
  • In Oedipus Rex Sophocles has Thebes hit by various plagues—withered crops, stillborn children, the works—but here as in general use, plague carries with it the implication of bubonic.†   (source)
  • To respect someone's civil liberties to the point of allowing them to wither away on the street, or to intercede in the interest of their own welfare?†   (source)
  • Within the full cycle of the moon, we will wither and die.†   (source)
  • As his convoy exfiltrated the area with detainees, his element came under withering enemy fire.†   (source)
  • I can't drag a husband and sons into a life where their beauty will blossom and wither in darkness.†   (source)
  • their suppleness of movement and their certainty of purpose and their bond with one another, that bond he and his friends used to say was like that of brothers, but was in some ways stronger than that of brothers, or at least than his bond with his own brother, his kid brother, who had passed last spring from cancer of the throat that had withered him to the weight of a young girl, and who had not spoken to the old man for years, and when the old man had gone to see him in the hospital could no longer speak, could only look, and in his eyes was exhaustion but not so much fear, brave eyes, on a kid brother the old man had never before thought of as brave.†   (source)
  • She'd withered from 140 pounds to about 100.†   (source)
  • Torn apart by the wish to take no action-to starve, to wither in thought on the one hand; and driven to kill on the other-I stood in an empty, desolate street and heard the sound of a child crying.†   (source)
  • It smells like...Springtime, she thought, before the heat comes and crushes the leaves into pulp and withers the petals off the flowers.†   (source)
  • He threw me a withering look.†   (source)
  • My flesh is withered, Father, but not my spirit!†   (source)
  • These paths, trodden down for centuries by warring tribesmen, were the very routes taken by the defeated Taliban and al Qaeda after the withering U.S. bombardment had all but annihilated them in 2001.†   (source)
  • That withering look, which Luma would perfect over the years, had the stinging effect of a riding crop.†   (source)
  • She was still young, a woman who had made a mark on life with her elegance and social drive, but who was now slowly withering in the aroma of camphor that rose from her widow's crepe.†   (source)
  • She gave me one of her withering looks.†   (source)
  • On the window sill stood a potted plant with brown, withered leaves.†   (source)
  • Deborah stepped forward and took Ultima's withered hand.†   (source)
  • It occurred to me that my vision of the fig tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to earth might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach.†   (source)
  • But she raised her right hand, as thousands of other arms lifted into the air around her, and she chanted, with thousands of other voices, "If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise."†   (source)
  • Jamis has been called by Him, by Shai-hulud, who has ordained the phases for the moons that daily wane and—in the end—appear as bent and withered twigs.†   (source)
  • She casts a withering look at a blond-haired older boy, one of the troublemakers.†   (source)
  • He could have ruined his own self in time but she was tired of waiting for him to wither up.†   (source)
  • He leveled Liam with a withering stare.†   (source)
  • He felt the men's hands on him, and he had a strange wilting feeling, as if he was a plant suddenly withering away in the sun.†   (source)
  • She shot him a withering look, but, like yesterday, there was something playful in it.†   (source)
  • She gave Annie a withering look.†   (source)
  • The very monotony I had lately disdained cried out to me: I am essential without me you will wither, like this summer folding up into fall' freeze hard, water in winter awaiting the first breath of spring' uproot, grass in a wind blown into tornado' parch, like earth denied rain.†   (source)
  • Two swings side by side, withered leaves covering the ground.†   (source)
  • Something dead is happening, like the weeds that are left to bleach and wither in the sun.†   (source)
  • Now the Mount Elgon herd has withered to one extended family of about seventy elephants.†   (source)
  • After two years of constantly lying curled up in a fetal position, Simeesh's legs had withered and become permanently bent: She couldn't move them, let alone straighten them, and she was too emaciated and weak to operate on.†   (source)
  • Hema peered around Sister Mary Joseph Praise's swollen belly to fix Nurse Asqual with a withering look.†   (source)
  • Standing in the middle of the car, in the faint light filtering through the windows, she looked like a withered tree in a field of wheat.†   (source)
  • But all my confident words are withering on my lips.†   (source)
  • It was an ancient woman, withered and bent, and Buttercup thought of all the faces that had gone by in her lifetime, but this one she could not remember.†   (source)
  • I le felt Very lonely and desolate as his thoughts turned far away—to the foolish, lovable bug; to the comforting assurance of Tuck, standing next to him; to the erratic, excitable PIN N E: to little Alec, who, he hoped, would someday reach the ground; to Rhyme and Reason, without whom Wisdom withered; and to the many, many others he would renumber always.†   (source)
  • Char's answer: "My tongue may wither from disuse here, but at least I shan't lose words entirely while I still can write to you."†   (source)
  • As they rode they cut strips of the smoked and half dried deermeat and chewed on it and their hands were black and greasy and they wiped them on the withers of the horses and passed the canteen of water back and forth between them and admired the country.†   (source)
  • The horses were soon flinching, stamping and swishing their tails, their withers covered with mosquitoes.†   (source)
  • And dangling from the stays he's got half a dozen withered objects, tied by the hair like scalps.†   (source)
  • But even with the hundreds of flowers, I was aware of the small deaths brought by each morning, as one by one, the roses withered.†   (source)
  • Instead, I find an Appalachian apple doll, withered and spotty, with dewlaps and bags and long floppy ears.†   (source)
  • Unless they caught the tide exactly right, the men in the boats could have been stranded on mudflats a hundred yards or more from dry ground and forced to struggle through knee-deep muck while under withering fire.†   (source)
  • The grass, the withering leaves were full of whispering, but the campground was hushed, muffled by their presence, as if blighted.†   (source)
  • This gatemouth is out to expose him in some withering way.†   (source)
  • He acquired a withered white prostitute, a diamond ring on his little finger and a Harris tweed coat with raglan sleeves.†   (source)
  • When I asked one of the girls who was studying Greek to read me a line or two, she gave me a withering look.†   (source)
  • 'He didn't say that,' Corporal Whitcomb corrected with withering precision.†   (source)
  • The summers withered the cotton and corn and the tornado season lasted ten months, making splinters out of their barns, twisting the tin off their roofs, yanking their tombstones out of the ground.†   (source)
  • Put some blood into your cheeks," Brave Orchid said, and pinched her sister's withered face.†   (source)
  • There are parts that have withered.†   (source)
  • The roaring pillar of flame began to die and wither to quiet licks of flame among the spent logs.†   (source)
  • The housekeeper bids us wait for a moment in a large, poorly lit parlor filled with dusty books and withering ferns.†   (source)
  • In my experience, these creatures weren't the sleazeballs who'd act sexually toward prisoners; in fact, they would never fraternize with lower life-forms like us, and they reserved their most withering scorn for their colleagues who treated us humanely.†   (source)
  • She assumed that every person there, except for Jake, believed her mother was sleeping with a withered and decaying old white man, and doing so to get his money.†   (source)
  • Someone small with withered legs.†   (source)
  • His malice is great and gives him a strength hardly to be believed in one so lean and withered.†   (source)
  • 'They will wither, master,' said Rabscuttle, 'and I am withered now.'†   (source)
  • "I told Magwich to burn it," he said, giving the Steward a withering glare, "but it seems he's unable to do even the simplest of tasks.†   (source)
  • I Ier old, much-mended bodice had given way with the tugging, exposing one withered pap, purple from bruising.†   (source)
  • Jean Louise gave her uncle a look which withered him not at all and marched into the church with as much dignity as she could muster.†   (source)
  • I offered my April's withered arm as example of evil.†   (source)
  • And here Tanis thundered to Palus, "Come, my love, throw yourself into my arm of iron, and I will strike the withering beasts from the air with my other, a fist of stone."†   (source)
  • His offer was met by withering gunfire.†   (source)
  • A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived.†   (source)
  • They're simple, don't wither up on you if you look cross-eyed.†   (source)
  • The most beautiful women, the most learned men, even Mohammed, who heard Allah's own voice, all did wither and die.†   (source)
  • My curiosity for the spy mission withers.†   (source)
  • The plantation system has long gone; the society it fostered has withered away, even in cities that once displayed its graces, such as Charleston, South Carolina.†   (source)
  • Without the water the crops would wither in the summer heat.†   (source)
  • Mr. Toot Withers took his place, riding a high-stepping white stallion, and waving a sword in one hand and a big Confederate flag in the other.†   (source)
  • I loved him and give him the poison and he withered away like a frost-bit apple.†   (source)
  • Why should these withered old men provoke such feelings of fear and guilt ...and loathing?†   (source)
  • However, after 1846, no one at the mission saw him again until 1879 when he appeared at the gates one morning, withered, frail, and extremely ill.†   (source)
  • The firefighters were already engulfed in a wave of withering heat, and the flames were reaching out toward them.†   (source)
  • They were low, dusty, and blunted, with scrubby vegetation and an occasional withered yucca tree crusted in snow.†   (source)
  • In the end, Lusaka confirmed the separation of the ANC and the party and the argument eventually withered away.†   (source)
  • Without man, the wheat might grow wild, it might flourish, but then it would wither and die.†   (source)
  • Celia examines the withered contents of her refrigerator: three carrots, half a green pepper, a handful of spongy potatoes.†   (source)
  • Archie stiffened, shot a look at Carter, a withering look that said, tell them to cut the crap.†   (source)
  • All his idealism would have withered in the face of the baby's raw cry, but he didn't know.... Alessandro turned to Nicolo.†   (source)
  • It was not a matter of texture or wrinkles, it was the same face with the same muscles, but saturated by the withering look of resignation to a pain accepted as hopeless.†   (source)
  • For that one blistering summer, the ground moisture was just right, planting early allowed pollination before heat withered the tops, and the lack of rain spared the standing corn from floods.†   (source)
  • Here were greens bright as spring, dry as withered grass, earthy as leaves at the end of summer, vibrant as moss after a rain, dull as that moment before the yellows and reds of fall begin to set in.†   (source)
  • You have seen the young shoot swelling Even as the parent stalk begins to wither.†   (source)
  • But I had to admit that what Sergeant Zim had taken, and swallowed, was so completely humiliating and withering as to make the worst I had ever heard or overhead from a sergeant sound like a love song.†   (source)
  • Joe reeled backward from the burning woman, from the sight that scorched his heart, from the hideous stench that withered him, from an insoluble mystery that left him empty of hope.†   (source)
  • GEORGE (Withering) Your sympathy disarms me ....your ....your compassion makes me weep!†   (source)
  • I guess my daddy is like the green grass only he was cut down before he could wither and fade.†   (source)
  • But under withering artillery fire the men begin to fall back.†   (source)
  • Under his withering look, her face went from hope to savage disappointment faster than Amanda could take a breath.†   (source)
  • By fall, when we had returned to E. A. Poe High and football season was well underway, with Misty high-stepping her way through each half-time performance, the canna lilies stood like a bed of corn stalks, brown and withered.†   (source)
  • He just tells you he's a peasant and that he's thirty-three years old and that he's got a withered arm.†   (source)
  • Loses not the arm but the use of it; it remains withered within his pinned sleeve for the rest of his days.†   (source)
  • The back is a gaudy parade float of lilies and carnations and roses in varying states of bloom and wither.†   (source)
  • Then I got me a second rope and tied it tight around his middle, just back of his withers.†   (source)
  • His eyes never left mine even as I tried to wither away from his touch.†   (source)
  • She had come to ask for some palm leaves to thatch the new but her husband was building; but I could only point to the blackened tree, its head bitten off and hanging by a few fibres from the withered stump.†   (source)
  • I found a box of semifresh saltines, a few withered apples, a quart of chocolate milk and a bag of taco chips.†   (source)
  • The General returned to his seat, smiling, folded his hands beneath his chin, and immobilized me with the withering crossfire of his eyes again.†   (source)
  • The new American finds his challenge and his love in traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smog, choking with the acids of industry, the screech of rubber and houses leashed in against one another while the townlets wither a time and die.†   (source)
  • Nothing can describe the withering horror of this.†   (source)
  • The zombies marched to a slow, steady drumbeat, and the fire elementals flowed on before them and the grasses withered where they passed.†   (source)
  • It was a mask, withered and pitiable.†   (source)
  • ANNIE [WITHERING]: Cleaner.†   (source)
  • By midday they were traversing a rocky barren terrain, its only trees the drooping mugga-woods, its only flowers the everlasting daisies: the flowers that never die; that live on, even after their petals, leaves, stalks, and roots have crumbled and withered away.†   (source)
  • Once, Samanas had travelled through Siddhartha's town, ascetics on a pilgrimage, three skinny, withered men, neither old nor young, with dusty and bloody shoulders, almost naked, scorched by the sun, surrounded by loneliness, strangers and enemies to the world, strangers and lank jackals in the realm of humans.†   (source)
  • Our Petia had withered legs, he was three but he couldn't walk at all, so I carried him around.†   (source)
  • After a few moments Catherine gave up, and relaxed her trumpet between her withered hands into her lap.†   (source)
  • ...Or maybe it's been nesting on some withered branch?†   (source)
  • Big dead trees, like black men with one arm, were standing in the purple stalks of the withered cotton field.†   (source)
  • Frequently peeling off his shirt during the hot summer campaign, he harangued audiences in every corner of Texas with his great fund of vituperative epithets and withering sarcasm.†   (source)
  • And one voice, with sublime disregard for the situation, read poetry aloud all in the fiery study, until all the film spools burned, until all the wires withered and the circuits cracked.†   (source)
  • Off this farm he would wither and die.†   (source)
  • No use for you, I think at her, my face unmoving, you can't use them anymore, you're withered.†   (source)
  • The young man found his withered superior seated on the stone bench beneath a blanket.†   (source)
  • From the lawn comes a scent of withering lilacs — a singed smell, like sunburned skin.†   (source)
  • I looked nervously at the Oracle's withered face.†   (source)
  • It withered and hung useless, so Madam sold her.†   (source)
  • Ashamed of her withered looks and swollen lip.†   (source)
  • "Midnight," Vittoria said, with a withering look.†   (source)
  • "Can I have that?" interrupted Draco, pointing at the withered hand on its cushion.†   (source)
  • Emma began to protest, but Miss Peregrine shut her down with a withering glare.†   (source)
  • At the sound of his footsteps, household pets scattered and plants withered.†   (source)
  • I bet she's got her working away on that dried-up old withered —.†   (source)
  • Crippled muscles withered further, synapses wouldn't fire, wasted legs refused to ambulate.†   (source)
  • Or did she seem withered to him, reduced, pitiable, like a fearful, shuffling old woman?†   (source)
  • Nehemia gave him the withering glare that usually made people start sweating.†   (source)
  • Piper wanted to make a withering retort, but her anger turned to panic.†   (source)
  • It was a treacherous descent and Dumbledore, hampered slightly by his withered hand, moved slowly.†   (source)
  • Of course, the previous Oracle had been a withered corpse, so perhaps the bar was low.†   (source)
  • Jimmy was shocked by how old she'd become: her skin was lined, her mouth withered.†   (source)
  • Her hands lay in her lap, withered and limp.†   (source)
  • I reached for her, only to realize that my hands were withering to bones.†   (source)
  • She carries a paper sack full of withered greens and seats herself amid the rubble.†   (source)
  • And underneath, a boat-shaped patch of withered grass.†   (source)
  • Already the ends of my thumbs are fissuring, my face withering further.†   (source)
  • I saw all the way down to her withered soul.†   (source)
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meaning too rare to warrant focus:

show 10 examples with meaning too rare to warrant focus
  • It was held in the deserted Headmaster's house, and Mr. Patch-Withers' wife trembled at every cup tinkle.   (source)
    withers = proper noun
  • It wasn't thirty seconds before the soldiers were there, Corporal Withers saluting and saying, "Yes, sir, General Harrison."   (source)
  • And I know where Mirkwood is, and the Withered Heath where the great dragons bred.   (source)
  • Mrs. Patch-Withers' glance then happened to fall on his belt.   (source)
  • Patch-Withers was pretty gassy, and his wife, and …   (source)
  • Mr. Patch-Withers' laughter surprised us all, including himself.   (source)
  • "A lot of nonsense," Mr. Patch-Withers grumbled.   (source)
  • Send in Corporal Withers and four soldiers, at once.   (source)
  • Corporal Withers obeyed instantly, pausing only to say, "Yes sir, General Harrison."   (source)
  • What a pompous-- But Harrison was talking to Withers again, and looking at Hooch as he did so.   (source)
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show 10 more examples with meaning too rare to warrant focus
  • "But it would be just as embarrassing in front of you and Mrs. Patch-Withers," and he smiled politely down at her.   (source)
  • Mr. Patch-Withers settled into a hearty silence at this, and so Finny added, "I'm glad I put on something for a belt!"   (source)
  • Phineas was very happy; sour and stern Mr. Patch-Withers had been given a good laugh for once, and he had done it!   (source)
  • In the afternoon Mr. Patch-Withers, who was substitute Headmaster for the summer, offered the traditional term tea to the Upper Middle class.   (source)
  • Mr. Patch-Withers' face was reaching a brilliant shade, and his wife's head fell as though before the guillotine.   (source)
  • Mr. Patch-Withers' face had been shifting expressions and changing colors continuously, and now it settled into fixed surprise.   (source)
  • Mr. Patch-Withers gave us a five-minute written quiz on the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.   (source)
  • When the sternest of the Summer Sessions Masters, old Mr. Patch-Withers, came up to him after history class and asked about it, I watched his drawn but pink face become pinker with amusement as Finny politely explained the meaning of the shirt.   (source)
  • From there our line of snow statues, unrecognizable artistic attacks on the Headmaster, Mr. Ludsbury, Mr. Patch-Withers, Dr. Stanpole, the new dietitian, and Hazel Brewster curved in an enclosing half-circle to the icy, muddy, lisping edge of the tidewater Naguamsett and back to the other side of the Prize Table.   (source)
  • It got worse, though, and he cussed again when Withers marched him right across the stockade, stark naked, and didn't give him so much as a blanket when he locked him into a storage room.   (source)
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