Word.ws English Dictionary

lithening

lithening is the present participle and gerund of lithen.

Meaning of lithen

Verb (1)

lithen (third-person singular simple present lithens, present participle lithening, simple past and past participle lithened)

  1. (archaic) To make lithe, soften; to ease, mitigate
    • “Nay, daughter, when thou art as old as Notte it will be time enough to reckon years!” returned the dark-skinned sybil, lithening the stiff folds of a viper in a blue oil, which cast out a noisome perfume as she stirred it.1874, Emma Robinson, Cæsar Borgia

Verb (2)

lithen (third-person singular simple present lithens, present participle lithening, simple past and past participle lithened)

  1. (dialectal) To thicken a broth or gravy with a thickening agent (e.g. flour, oatmeal, etc.)

Questions about lithening

What is lithening the present participle and gerund of?
Lithening is the present participle and gerund of lithen.

Words near lithening in the dictionary

  1. lithemic
  2. lithen
  3. lithened
  4. litheness
  5. lithenesses
  6. lithening
  7. lithens
  8. lither
  9. Litherland
  10. Litherlands
  11. litherly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lithening (page history and authors); lithen (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “lithening.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lithening. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.