Now (?), adv. [OE. nou, nu, AS. nu, nu; akin to D., OS., & OHG. nu, G. nu, nun, Icel., nu, Dan., Sw., & Goth. nu, L. nunc, Gr. , , Skr. nu, nu. 193. Cf. New.]
1.
At the present time; at this moment; at the time of speaking; instantly; as, I will write now.
I have a patient now living, at an advanced age, who discharged blood from his lungs thirty years ago.
Arbuthnot.
2.
Very lately; not long ago.
They that but now, for honor and for plate,
Made the sea blush with blood, resign their hate.
Waller.
3.
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. 24.
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. 40.
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.
© Webster 1913.
Now, a.
Existing at the present time; present.
[R.] "Our
now happiness."
Glanvill.
© Webster 1913.
Now, n.
The present time or moment; the present.
Nothing is there to come, and nothing past;
But an eternal now does ever last.
Cowley.
© Webster 1913.