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The state or quality of being withered or lean. [R.]

Converted into a mummy or a mummylike substance; having the appearance of a mummy; withered.

One whose affections and energies are withered. Mummy brown, a brown color, nearly intermediate in tint between burnt umber and raw umber. A pigment of this color is prepared from bitumen, etc., obtained from Egyptian tombs. -- Mummy wheat (Bot.), wheat found in the ancient mummy cases of Egypt. No botanist now believ…

To be destroyed; to pass away; to become nothing; to be lost; to die; hence, to wither; to waste away. I perish with hunger! Luke xv. 17. Grow up and perish, as the summer fly. Milton. The thoughts of a soul that perish in thinking. Locke.

ay, under any distress or anexiety of mind; to droop; -- often used with away. "The roses wither and the lilies pine." Tickell.

; to make plain or even on the surface. [R.] We would rake Europe rather, plain the East. Wither.

; shortly; before long; after a little while; by and by. Shak. And presently the fig tree withered away. Matt. xxi. 19.

To die; to perish; hence, to wither; to fade. [Obs.] Spenser.

cover or restore from apparent death; as, to resuscitate a drowned person; to resuscitate withered plants.

The beam in the angle of a roof; hence, the roof itself. Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the rooftree fall. Tennyson.

Fig.: Dry, old; husky; withered; spiritless. "A somewhat sapless womanhood." Lowell. Now sapless on the verge of death he stands. Dryden.

An object of scorn, mockery, or derision. The scoff of withered age and beardless youth. Cowper.

To wither; to dry up. Shak.

[OE. seer, AS. seár (assumed) fr. seárian to wither; akin to D. zoor dry, LG. soor, OHG. soren to to wither, Gr. sush) to dry, to wither, Zend hush to dry. sq. root152. Cf. Austere, Sorrel, a.] Dry; withered; no longer green; -- applied to leaves. Milton. I have lived long enough; my way of life Is fall'n into the sear…

Dry; withered. Same as Sear. But with its sound it shook the sails That were so thin and sere. Coleridge.

make vapid or tasteless; to destroy the life, beauty, or use of; to wear out. Age can not wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Shak.

ettle; to establish. [R.] I myself, though meanest stated, And in court now almost hated. Wither. Who calls the council, states the certain day. Pope.

Done by stealth; accomplished clandestinely; unperceived; secret; furtive; sly. [Withered murder] with his stealthy pace, . . . Moves like a ghost. Shak.

a tree or shrub; also, any stem or branch of a tree, of any size, cut for fuel or timber. Withered sticks to gather, which might serve Against a winter's day. Milton.

streamed tears. It may so please that she at length will stream Some dew of grace into my withered heart. Spenser.