wizen
/ˈwɪzən/
wizen adjective: wizened; withered; lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness.
Adjective
wizen (comparative more wizen, superlative most wizen)
- Wizened; withered; lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness.
- His face was wizen and wrinkled, his faded blue eyes dim and weak-looking. He was feeble, and his hands were tremulous with a perpetual nervous motion.1864, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Henry Dunbar
- Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet would pass away from his lips and the gold steal from his hair.1891, Oscar Wilde, “chapter”, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC
Verb
wizen (third-person singular simple present wizens, present participle wizening, simple past and past participle wizened)
- To wither; to become lean and wrinkled by shrinkage, as from age or illness.
- After wizening with cold for an hour, we ran down to the hut for breakfast, rejoicing in having brought with us some portable soup ; and after a second visit to the summit, started at eight, when the day seemed already far advanced, along with the Bleiberg party, for the descent.1864, Josiah Gilbert Holland, G. C. Churchill, “The Morning Panorama”, in The Dolomite Mountains: Excursions through Tyrol, Carinthia, Carniola, & Friuli in 1861, 1862, & 1863, London: Longman et...
- Where his suspicions were cast no man knew for certain, but his plump features wizened, and his rosy cheeks grew white, his proud head drooped, and he walked with a piteous uncertainty for so pompous and lofty a man.1883, David Christie Murray, Hearts, volume III, London: Chatto & Windus, page 30
- To make wizened.
- […] Lea, archetype of the older woman, wise, but not yet wizened by age and experience.1981 January 26, Gerald Clarke, “Books: Field Flowers”, in Time
- The title itself refers to Nō masks that represent stock women characters from traditional stories—such as the young “madwoman” or the older woman wizened by age and loss—though it is translated into English simply as Masks.2019 January 23, Julia Shiota, “The Messiness of Resistance”, in Ploughshares, retrieved 16 Jul 2026
Examples of wizen in a sentence
- “And what is your name, crispy, old, wizened crone?” “Oh, my name's Helen.” “Hel-- Oh, just Helen.
- Glister was determined to prove the wizened piskie wrong, but its taunts were well founded.
- I found a ship's biscuit and a wizened apple in my sketch sack.
Forms of wizen
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more wizen |
| superlative | most wizen |
| alternative form | wizzen |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | wizens |
| present participle | wizening |
| past participle | wizened |
| past | wizened |
Origin of wizen
Inherited from Middle English wisenen, from Old English wisnian, weosnian, from Proto-West Germanic *wisnōn, from Proto-Germanic *wisnōną, from Proto-Germanic *wesaną (“to consume”). Cognate with Icelandic visna, Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐍅𐌹𐍃𐌰𐌽 (frawisan, “to squander through feasting”).
Words that rhyme with wizen
Questions about wizen
- What does wizen mean?
- Wizen means wizened; withered; lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness.
- What part of speech is wizen?
- Wizen can be an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce wizen?
- Wizen is pronounced /ˈwɪzən/.
Words near wizen in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wizen (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: “wizen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wizen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.