Wither

Wither (pronounced with-er)

(1) To shrivel; fade; decay.

(2) To lose the freshness of youth, as from age (often followed by away).

(3) To make flaccid, shrunken, or dry, as from loss of moisture; cause to lose freshness, bloom, vigour, etc.

(4) Harmfully to affect.

(5) To abash, as by a scathing glance (the withering look).

(6) The singular of withers (part of the back of a four-legged animal that is between the shoulder blades).

1530s: From the Middle English as an alteration of the late fourteenth century wydderen (dry up, shrivel), intransitive, apparently a differentiated and special use of wederen (to expose to weather), from the Old English hwider, an alteration of hwæder, from the Proto-Germanic hwadrê.  In German, there was verwittern (to become weather-beaten), from Witter (weather).  The transitive sense emerged in the 1550s.  Wither is a verb & adverb, withered is an adjective &  adverb, withering is a noun, verb & adjective and witheringly is an adverb.

Readers ancient & modern

There's also whither (To what place?) which is functionally equivalent to the relative adverb "whereto".  Except in poetry or other literary forms, "whither" is now rare to such an extent that it can be said to have vanished from popular use.  For many students, Shakespeare in the original is close to something in a foreign language and it’s not uncommon for high-school texts to be rendered more accessible.  This has be criticised as dumbing down (and at tertiary level probably is) but is probably a good idea.  One editor actually thought young readers would manage with wither but thought "riggish" too difficult.  In Antony and Cleopatra (Act 2 Scene 2), Shakespeare had Enobarbus say:

Never. He will not.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies, for vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.

The editor “translated” thus:

He’ll never leave her.
Age won’t wither her,
And her charms are so varied that she never grows boring.
With other women, the longer you know them the less appealing they become. 
Cleopatra, on the other hand, makes you desire her the more you see her.
Even her worst faults are charming
Holy priests bless her even when she acts the slut.

The Withered Garland (1800) by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel (1772–1829)

It was yet May when these you broke,

and in those flowers spoke,

yet a blossom yourself,

that which, now blooming, in your own heart

was awakening and,

in sacred wise, did already stir,

that childlike something your friend, ah! so cherished

when she her heart did lay

upon his own,

where now I do eternally weep.

 

These violets, which as a sign the child did send,

now do so soften my heart

that my eyes

may never bring to an end

the pain they now suck in,

and oft do still to her turn,

now finding but this garland, withered, in my hands.

Like this wreath did she,

chosen early to end,

lose herself self-unbeknownst.

 

Take hither this lofty, precious gift,

the only thing yet left to me

of the precious one,

that it might her image yet renew

when amid tears

my yearning so willingly flees

into death arms, escaping life’s vain notions.

Though let me first in tears

immerse my sweet remembrance!

 

We who found life in the pleasure of death,

who boldly nature understood

amid the flames,

where love and pain together

us unite:

let our foreheads be encircled

by the sign whose sense we have long since found.

For did not from these wounds

oft spring forth roses

in painful caress?

 

Hence may this girl’s own shadow surround us, hovering,

to melancholy devoted,

till in death as one we may again more intimately live,

and this deep striving wholly unite

those who, smiling, for one another weep.