Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Shriveled, wrinkled, and dried up, especially due to aging or illness: Describes a person, face, or other living thing that has become thin, wrinkled, and shrunken, often from the effects of old age or poor health.

Usage

• The adjective wizen (also commonly used in its participial form wizened) is used to describe physical appearance. It carries connotations of natural but often harsh aging or deterioration, not temporary conditions. It is typically applied to people or their features (like a face or hands), and sometimes to plants or other organic matter.
• It is a descriptive term often found in literary contexts.

Examples

• Adjective:
  • The wizen old man sat quietly on the porch.
  • Her wizened hands trembled as she poured the tea.
  • After years in the desert sun, his skin became wizened and leathery.

Advanced Usage

• "a wizened apple": This usage extends the meaning to describe fruit or vegetation that has dried up and shriveled.
  • He found only a wizened apple at the bottom of the basket.

Variants and Related Words

• Wizened (adj): The more common participial adjective form of 'wizen'.
  • The wizened tree stood alone on the hill.
• Wizen (verb, archaic): To become dry, shrunken, and wrinkled. This verb form is now rare.
  • The fruit wizened on the branch.

Synonyms

• Shriveled: Reduced in size and wrinkled.
• Withered: Dried up and lost vitality, often referring to plants or body parts.
• Shrunken: Having become smaller in size.
• Desiccated: Dried out thoroughly.

Antonyms

• Plump: Full and rounded in form.
• Youthful: Having the characteristics of youth.
• Smooth: Having an even surface without wrinkles.

Adjective

1. lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness
   • the old woman's shriveled skin
   • he looked shriveled and ill
   • a shrunken old man
   • a lanky scarecrow of a man with withered face and lantern jaws-W.F.Starkie
   • he did well despite his withered arm
   • a wizened little man with frizzy grey hair