Word Direct Answers

What does "now" mean?

Now: Very lately; not long ago. They that but now, for honor and for plate, Made the sea blush with blood, resign their hate. Waller.

Additional senses

  1. 2.At a time contemporaneous with something spoken of or contemplated; at a particular time referred to. The ship was now in the midst of the sea. Matt. xiv.
  2. 3.4. In present circumstances; things being as they are; -- hence, used as a connective particle, to introduce an inference or an explanation. How shall any man distinguish now betwixt a parasite and a man of honor L'Estrange. Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is Shak. Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a robber. John xviii.
  3. 4.The other great and undoing mischief which befalls men is, by their being misrepresented. Now, by calling evil good, a man is misrepresented to others in the way of slander. South. Now and again, now and then; occasionally. -- Now and now, again and again; repeatedly. [Obs.] Chaucer. -- Now and then, at one time and another; indefinitely; occasionally; not often; at intervals. "A mead here, there a heath, and now and then a wood." Drayton. -- Now now, at this very instant; precisely now. [Obs.] "Why, even now now, at holding up of this finger, and before the turning down of this." J. Webster (1607). -- Now . . . now, alternately; at one time . . . at another time. "Now high, now low, now master up, now miss." Pope.
  4. 5.Existing at the present time; present. [R.] "Our now happiness." Glanvill.
  5. 6.The present time or moment; the present. Nothing is there to come, and nothing past; But an eternal now does ever last. Cowley.

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