Etymology

wizen

W4I1Z10E1N1

Today it means: Wizened; withered; lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness. Full definition →

Middle English wisenen ← Old English wisnian ← Proto-West Germanic *wisnōn
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · derived from*wesaną“to consume”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*wisnōną
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*wisnōn
  4. Old English · inherited fromwisnian
  5. Middle English · inherited fromwisenen
  6. English todaywizen

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 from the same roots

Middle Englishwisenen all →

wizened

Old Englishwisnian all →

wizened

Proto-Germanic*wesaną all →

isbe

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.