Wan

How to spell wan

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce wan

What does wan mean?

1. adjectivePale and unhealthy looking, or weak and lacking in vitality.

Wan in a sentence

• Her wan complexion convinced the doctor to run more tests.

• He managed only a wan smile before going back to bed.

Where does wan come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes straight from Old English wann, which surprisingly meant 'dark', 'dusky', or 'gloomy', and was often used of a leaden, livid colour such as a bruise or a stormy sky. Over the centuries the sense flipped almost entirely: from describing something dark it came to describe something drained of colour, pale, and sickly looking. The shift probably happened through the idea of an unhealthy, ashen, bloodless complexion, which can read as both shadowy and pale. Because the word is so short and old, it never picked up Latin or French dressing, and its spelling stayed plain. Modern writers mostly stumble not on the letters themselves but on confusing it with the look-alike 'won', the past tense of 'win'.

How the word is built

• wan (from Old English wann: dark, gloomy, later shifting to mean pale)