Inflected wanned, wanning. Also 3 wonne. [OE. wannian, f. WAN a.]
† 1. intr. To become dark, discolored, or livid.
c. 1000. Vercelli MS., 23 b/7. Þonne wannað be & doxaþ; oðre hwile he bið blæc & æhiwe.
c. 1230. Hali Meid., 35. Þine ehnen schulen doskin & under þon wonnen.
a. 1400–50. Wars Alex., 4142. Þe son wadis, Þe werd wannes at a wap & þe wedire gloumes. Ibid., 4627. Quen it [gold] walows & wannes all oure thestres, Ȝet ere we toghid to & fra be turnyng of eldris.
2. To grow pale. poet.
1582. Stanyhurst, Æneis, IV. (Arb.), 118. Al her visage waning with murder aproching [L. pallida morte futura].
1599. Marston, Ant. & Mel., III. (1602), E 4. I haue a good head of haire, a cheeke Not as yet wan’d.
1602. Shaks., Ham., II. ii. 580 (Q 1604). Is it not monstrous that this player heere … Could force his soule so to his owne conceit That from her working all the visage wand [Folio warm’d].
1847. Tennyson, Princess, IV. 142. Psyche flush’d and wann’d and shook. Ibid. (1855), Maud, I. I. iii. And ever he mutter’d and madden’d, and ever wann’d with despair.
1866. Conington, Æneid, IV. p. 128. The queen,… wanning o’er with death foreseen.
1901. Henley, Hawthorn & Lavender, xlvi. 62. And by and by The wide-winged sunset wanned and waned.
1906. E. Thompson, To English Martyrs, 18. The troubled heavens do wan with care.
Hence Wanned ppl. a., Wanning vbl. sb.
a. 1513. Fabyan, Chron., VII. 683. Whoom deth soo stern wyth his wannyd hewe Hath now pursuyd.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., II. i. 21. All the charmes of Loue, Salt Cleopatra soften thy wand lip.
[1818: see WANED ppl. a.]
1888. William Archer, in Longman’s Mag., Feb., 392. Many [actors] … assert that the ‘wanning’ of the visage is a common and even habitual accompaniment of imagined terror and kindred emotions.
