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''wizened'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260628200227-00-⌔

wizened - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

wizened

  • simple past and past participle of wizen

Adjective

wizened (comparative more wizened, superlative most wizened)

  • Withered; lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness.
    • ✤ “Ill-fard, crazy, crack-brained gowk, that she is!” exclaimed the housekeeper… “If it hadna been that I am mair than half a gentlewoman by my station, I wad hae tried my ten nails in the wizen’d hide o’ her!”1
    • ✤ He was old, too, wizened with age, and the hair on his face was gray.2
    • ✤ In the simple fable about old age reconciling itself to memory and destiny, Mastroianni wears the wizened smile of a man who knows he is visiting his youth for the last time.3

Etymology

From wizen +‎ -ed.

Inherited from Middle English wisenen, from Old English wisnian, weosnian, from Proto-Germanic ﹡wisnōjaną. Cognate with Icelandic visna.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈwɪzənd/
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (General American) IPA: /ˈwɪzənd/, (uncommon)/ˈwaɪzənd/
  • Rhymes: -ɪzənd

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1816, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 8, in Old Mortality: ↩

  2. 1907, Jack London, chapter 7, in Before Adam: ↩

  3. 2010 May 13, Richard Corliss, “Cannes: Best-Ever Film by a 101-Year-Old Man”, in Time, retrieved 5 October 2013: ↩

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Secondary

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