Dwine
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Decline, wane. countable, no-plural, rare, uncountable
"Old Mrs. Jennery, of Springholm, never had a daughter of her own, neither had her son, the father of the twin lads whom he left to his mother's care when he died of the dwine, as the country-folk called it."
- 1 To wither, decline, pine away.
"Without visible mark or sign she was elf-shot; and the proof of this appeared from her going off her milk, dwining away, and dying before her calves could be counted on the hooves of one foot."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Without visible mark or sign she was elf-shot; and the proof of this appeared from her going off her milk, dwining away, and dying before her calves could be counted on the hooves of one foot."
Etymology
From Middle English dwynen, from Old English dwīnan, from Proto-West Germanic *dwīnan, from Proto-Germanic *dwīnaną, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwey- (“to slip away, dwindle, die”), from *dʰew- (“to pass away, die”). Compare West Frisian ferdwine, Dutch dwijnen, verdwijnen, Low German dwienen, verdwienen, Icelandic dvína. See also English dwindle, dush.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.