Other forms: wilts, wilting, wilted
To wilt is to droop for lack of water. The flowers wilted, wilted lettuce, wilting in the heat.
A plant wilts when it loses water faster than the roots can replace it, and the cells lose the pressure that holds the leaves out — which is why wilting is often reversible and often not. In cooking, to wilt spinach is to cook it just until it collapses. Of people it means to lose energy in heat or under pressure: wilting in the sun. Note wilt as a plant disease, as in Dutch elm wilt.
1verbwiltTo droop for lack of water.
“The flowers began to wilt because nobody had watered them.”
2verbcookTo cook greens just until they collapse.
“Add the spinach to the hot pan and let it wilt for a minute.”
wilt is a drooping.
The word is recorded from about 1691, probably an alteration of welk, from Middle Dutch or Low German words meaning to wither. It is one of the few common plant verbs with a genuinely uncertain history.
Middle Low German
welken — to wither
Middle English
welken
English, today
wilt
Recorded since 1691, probably an alteration of welk, itself from Middle English welken, presumed from Middle Dutch - (preserved in modern inchoative verwelken) or Middle Low German welken (“to wither”), cognate with Old High German irwelhen (“to become soft”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Trees & Flowers