(Anglo-Saxon, wan, “deficient”; our wane, as the “waning moon.”) As wasting of the flesh is generally accompanied with a grey pallor, the idea of leanness has yielded to that of the sickly hue which attends it. (Verb wan-ian, to wane.)
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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