wither on the vine
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To decline or die due to lack of attention or support
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Suy giảm hoặc chết do thiếu sự quan tâm hoặc hỗ trợ
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: shrivel and die like a plant on the vine
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Eventually the Committee was to wither on the vine; its last reference resulting in the Committee's Eighteenth Report on Conspiracy to Defraud in 1986.
The fine talk in the sessions about love and understanding, give and take, began to wither on the vine.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “wither on the vine” mean?
To decline or die due to lack of attention or support Literally: shrivel and die like a plant on the vine
Is “wither on the vine” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.