Wizened means shrivelled and lined with age. A wizened face, a wizened old man, wizened apples.
It is about the drying and shrinking rather than the wrinkles alone, so wizened fruit works as well as a wizened face. It is not quite unkind, but nobody would use it of themselves.
1adjectivewizenedShrivelled and lined with age.
“A wizened old woman took the money at the gate.”
wizened is a quality.
Wizen comes from Old English wisnian, to dry up or wither, with cognates across the Germanic languages.
Proto-Germanic
*wisnōjaną
Old English
wisnian
Middle English
wisenen
English, today
wizened
From wizen + -ed. Inherited from Middle English wisenen, from Old English wisnian, weosnian, from Proto-Germanic wisnōjaną. Cognate with Icelandic visna.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA