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wan
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
wan
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
smile
▪ Amanda turned, caught Jean's eye and smiled, a thin, wan smile.
▪ The policeman attempted a wan smile.
▪ She blew her nose as daintily as was possible in the circumstances and handed the handkerchief back with a wan smile.
▪ He was picking crumbs from the plate when a diminutive, slope-shouldered man with a fixed, wan smile entered the room.
▪ He managed to open his eyes now and give her a wan smile.
▪ Relieved that he had an airplane at all, Branson received the news with a wan smile.
▪ Tweed put an affectionate hand on Paula's neck and she managed a wan smile.
▪ Eventually he sighed deeply, pushed himself to his feet and with a wan smile departed.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Angela looked wan and tired.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Amanda turned, caught Jean's eye and smiled, a thin, wan smile.
▪ Instead, I forced my features into a wan imitation.
▪ Relieved that he had an airplane at all, Branson received the news with a wan smile.
▪ The policeman attempted a wan smile.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wan

Wan \Wan\, v. i. To grow wan; to become pale or sickly in looks. ``All his visage wanned.''
--Shak.

And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair.
--Tennyson.

Wan

Wan \Wan\, obs. imp. of Win. Won.
--Chaucer.

Wan

Wan \Wan\, a. [AS. wann, wonn, wan, won, dark, lurid, livid, perhaps originally, worn out by toil, from winnan to labor, strive. See Win.] Having a pale or sickly hue; languid of look; pale; pallid. ``Sad to view, his visage pale and wan.''
--Spenser.

My color . . . [is] wan and of a leaden hue.
--Chaucer.

Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
--Suckling.

With the wan moon overhead.
--Longfellow.

Wan

Wan \Wan\, n. The quality of being wan; wanness. [R.]

Tinged with wan from lack of sleep.
--Tennyson.

Wan

Win \Win\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Won, Obs. Wan; p. pr. & vb. n. Winning.] [OE. winnen, AS. winnan to strive, labor, fight, endure; akin to OFries. winna, OS. winnan, D. winnen to win, gain, G. gewinnen, OHG. winnan to strive, struggle, Icel. vinna to labor, suffer, win, Dan. vinde to win, Sw. vinna, Goth. winnan to suffer, Skr. van to wish, get, gain, conquer. [root]138. Cf. Venerate, Winsome, Wish, Wont, a.]

  1. To gain by superiority in competition or contest; to obtain by victory over competitors or rivals; as, to win the prize in a gate; to win money; to win a battle, or to win a country. ``This city for to win.''
    --Chaucer. ``Who thus shall Canaan win.''
    --Milton.

    Thy well-breathed horse Impels the flying car, and wins the course.
    --Dryden.

  2. To allure to kindness; to bring to compliance; to gain or obtain, as by solicitation or courtship.

    Thy virtue wan me; with virtue preserve me.
    --Sir P. Sidney.

    She is a woman; therefore to be won.
    --Shak.

  3. To gain over to one's side or party; to obtain the favor, friendship, or support of; to render friendly or approving; as, to win an enemy; to win a jury.

  4. To come to by toil or effort; to reach; to overtake.

    Even in the porch he him did win.
    --Spenser.

    And when the stony path began, By which the naked peak they wan, Up flew the snowy ptarmigan.
    --Sir W. Scott.

  5. (Mining) To extract, as ore or coal.
    --Raymond.

    Syn: To gain; get; procure; earn. See Gain.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
wan

Old English wann "dark, dusky, lacking luster," later "leaden, pale, gray," of uncertain origin, and not found in other Germanic languages. The connecting notion is colorlessness. Perhaps related to wane. Related: Wanly; wanness.

Wiktionary
wan

Etymology 1

  1. pale, sickly-looking. n. The quality of being wan; wanness. Etymology 2

    v

  2. (context obsolete English) (en-pastwin)

WordNet
wan
  1. adj. (of light) lacking in intensity or brightness; dim or feeble; "the pale light of a half moon"; "a pale sun"; "the late afternoon light coming through the el tracks fell in pale oblongs on the street"; "a pallid sky"; "the pale (or wan) stars"; "the wan light of dawn" [syn: pale, pallid]

  2. abnormally deficient in color as suggesting physical or emotional distress; "the pallid face of the invalid"; "her wan face suddenly flushed" [syn: pale, pallid]

  3. lacking vitality as from weariness or illness or unhappiness; "a wan smile"

  4. [also: wanning, wanned, wannest, wanner]

wan
  1. v. become pale and sickly

  2. [also: wanning, wanned, wannest, wanner]

Wikipedia
WAN

WAN may refer to:

  • Wide Area Network in computer networking
  • Wan (surname)
  • Wan language of Ivory Coast
  • Wanborough railway station, in England, by station code
  • World Association of Newspapers
  • Wan, a character in The Boy Who Would Live Forever by Frederik Pohl
Wan (surname)

Wan is the Mandarin pinyin and Wade–Giles romanization of the Chinese surname written in simplified Chinese and in traditional Chinese. It is romanized as Man in Cantonese. It is listed 162nd in the Song dynasty classic text Hundred Family Surnames. As of 2008, it is the 88th most common surname in China, shared by 2.4 million people.

Usage examples of "wan".

It was Sandy Wan, the woman who would later help me track down the truth about the abortus vendors.

Wan and hollow-eyed as Seregil looked, he was bearing up better than Alec had imagined possible.

Blinking slowly, his worn gentle face turned stony, the Wan searched the dazed faces of the Amar until he saw the one he Wanted.

They arst of that suewish rtas then m we arI r chickhen he tFred eet lookch mffee, waN C E snames len I was ords.

She shaded her eyes and looked up and saw the moon hanging in the pure summer blueness, a wan face blankly amused by their silliness.

In the plaza a dozen white dolomite statues, now more or less dilapidated, cast stark black shadows away from the wan red sunlight.

He dipped doughy bread into it regularly and sucked at the resulting mess, chewing but not biting off, gnawing and worrying at the saliva-fouled bread that dripped wan yellow onto his desk.

The Escapee, however, faced with this insurrection of militant pessimism, turned pale and wan and murmured to himself comforting phrases of Kropotkin, etc.

Nothing execrable was wanting, neither military scenes full of little leaden soldiers, nor wan antiquity, nor the middle ages, smeared, as it were, with bitumen.

But ifn he evah did fah me, Ahd hab a dozin places in one houah from de varyus gennelmens what wans me.

And that Fiers might have also stolen their daughter, christened Carla May Mendelsohn, training her throughout a cold childhood of mind control and psychological indoctrination to become the wan, silent, tormented, but no less deadly, personal assassin he had christened Pity.

Pools of fouled black water gleamed greasily in the wan daylight, fringed with charred, stinking vegetation.

There he met a man who called himself Ha Minh Hien, who from his description is almost certainly your friend Van Luk Wan.

Her fragrant hair tickled his face as he strayed slow kisses there and caressed the lovesome geography of her, the flat, solid muscles in her back, the flesh of her nape under its wanning hair-cover.

He has the connections to find out through immigration whether Van Luk Wan entered the US as a tourist or a refugee.