Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To dry up; wither or shrivel.
  • intransitive verb To cause to wither, shrivel, or dry up.
  • adjective Shriveled or dried up; withered.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Hard, dry, and shriveled; withered.
  • To become dry or withered; shrivel; cause to fade; make dry.
  • noun An obsolete or dialectal form of weasand.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Wizened; thin; weazen; withered.
  • intransitive verb Prov. Eng. & Scot. To wither; to dry.
  • noun Prov. Eng. & Scot. The weasand.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective wizened; withered; lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness.
  • verb To wither; to become lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English wisenen, from Old English wisnian.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English wisenen, from Old English wisnian

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Examples

  • In fact I think with the world the way it is now and the interaction now possible because of technology we can experience and learn a lot more than people did in the past, which I believe has the ability to change and wizen a person much quicker than was possible in the not so distant past.

    Revolution and Evolution, Part 2 (The Dean Koontz edition) | Johnny B. Truant 2010

  • I remembered the main building in detail, wizen walls, dull unpolished and broken floorboards, nineteen fifties metal, peeling paint, dust, decay, death.

    Story to Forget 2010

  • I'd hoped that he'd wizen up, and end the campaign in style.

    Conservative Group To Run Anti-Wright Ads On National Networks Through Election Day 2009

  • Obama shouldn't go for the sage to help wizen up the ticket (Bush/Cheney) but the smart hottie (Clinton/Gore).

    Rasmussen: Obama Catching Up In Texas And Ohio 2009

  • If he'll only pay a trifle of money for me, and give me a few odd hundreds to begin with, I'll hold him quit of all else, so he'll but quit me of that wizen little stump. '

    Camilla 2008

  • Of course I don't want the anti-immigrant hate spewers to wizen up to their inconsistencies and expel the 33 immigrants on the US Olympic team this year, let alone a vast number of our nation's doctors, nurses, engineers -- and one governor.

    Sally Kohn: The Irony of Immigrant Olympians 2008

  • Close under this window, kneeling on the bare boards with his face to the door, there appeared, of all the creatures in the world to see alone at such a place and at such a time, a mere mite of a child — a little, lonely, wizen, strangely-clad boy, who could not at the most, have been more than five years old.

    A House to Let 2007

  • “Get ye out, Mr. Polonius!” said the old lady, a little wizen-faced old lady, with her face puckered up in a million of wrinkles.

    The Great Hoggarty Diamond 2006

  • It is needless to say, after entering so largely into a description of Lady Gorgon, that her husband was a little shrivelled wizen-faced creature, eight inches shorter than her

    The Bedford-Row Conspiracy 2006

  • Her eyes were as bright, and her little wizen face was as sharp as ever; but the wizen face and the bright eyes were not so much amiss as seen together with the old dark brown silk dress which she now wore, as they had been with the wiggeries and the evening finery.

    The Last Chronicle of Barset 2004

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