verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a plant withers (= becomes drier and starts to die )
withering contempt (= that makes you feel very inferior )
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She treated some of her staff with withering contempt.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
away
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For modern Realists the state was not about to wither away and deprive their theory of its foundations.
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The ideology of inclusion is withering away , to be replaced by a revival of survival-of-the-fittest capitalism.
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Programmes would wither away if they did not command sufficient local support.
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Even Marx intended that the state should wither away .
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Many other groups of specialists have also withered away in the face of data processing.
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Even with the rise of the Internet, few expert observers expect newspapers to wither away .
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Would the hydra eventually wither away spontaneously?
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The parties' grassroots connections, once the key to their political strength, have withered away .
■ NOUN
vine
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The fine talk in the sessions about love and understanding, give and take, began to wither on the vine .
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The department itself would wither on the vine .
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It is unforgivable to leave it to wither on the vine .
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a withering look/remark etc
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Charles turned abruptly round and gave his wife a withering look as reporters homed in on the pair.
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The dark-haired vibrancer caught him staring and gave him a withering look.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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And Basho: On a journey, ill, and over fields all withered, dreams go wandering.
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Boils and sores burst out over his flesh, his body becomes hunched and arthritic, his skin aged and withered.
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He did, however, curtail his withering critique.
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Joe was in top form, spinning stories, issuing pronunciamentos, dropping withering quips at every opportunity.
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Programmes would wither away if they did not command sufficient local support.
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The fame of Anacreon had withered to nothing with the decay of the times.
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They uprooted them, as Marshall had uprooted the cannabis, and watched them wither .
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Words to express her feelings seemed to wither and die inside her.