wan

/wɔn/

Thân thiện

A child gives a wan smile after recovering from a long illness.

Definition

1. Adjective:

   • Pale and giving the impression of illness or exhaustion: Describes a person's complexion or appearance that is unusually pale, often due to tiredness, sickness, or emotional distress.
   • Lacking intensity or brightness; dim: Describes light that is faint, weak, or feeble.

2. Noun:

   • Wide Area Network (WAN): A telecommunications network that extends over a large geographical area for the primary purpose of computer networking.

3. Verb:

   • To become pale and sickly: To lose color or vitality in one's appearance.

Examples

• Adjective:

  • She gave a wan smile, unable to muster much enthusiasm.
  • The wan light of the early moon barely illuminated the path.
  • His face looked wan and tired after the long illness.

• Noun:

  • The company's offices are connected via a WAN.
  • A WAN covers a much broader area than a local network (LAN).

• Verb (less common):

  • After hearing the bad news, he seemed to wan before our eyes.

Advanced Usage

• "Wan and weary": A literary phrase describing someone who is both pale and very tired.

  • The refugees were wan and weary after their long journey.

• "A wan hope": A faint or feeble hope that is unlikely to be realized.

  • He clung to the wan hope that she would return.

Variants and Related Words

• Wanly (adverb): In a pale, faint, or weak manner.

  • She smiled wanly from her hospital bed.

• Wanness (noun): The state or quality of being wan.

  • The wanness of his complexion was alarming.

Synonyms

• Adjective (for appearance): Pale, pallid, ashen, pasty, colorless.
• Adjective (for light): Faint, dim, feeble, weak, pallid.
• Verb: Pale, blanch.

Antonyms

• Adjective (for appearance): Rosy, flushed, ruddy, glowing.
• Adjective (for light): Bright, brilliant, intense, strong.

Notes on Different Meanings

• The primary and most common use of wan is as an adjective describing a pale, sickly appearance or dim light.
• The noun form (WAN) is a specific technical acronym in computing and is always capitalized.
• The verb form is rare and mostly used in literary contexts.

Học thuật

Adjective

1. lacking vitality as from weariness or illness or unhappiness
   • a wan smile
2. abnormally deficient in color as suggesting physical or emotional distress
   • the pallid face of the invalid
   • her wan face suddenly flushed
3. (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

Noun

1. a computer network that spans a wider area than does a local area network

Verb

1. become pale and sickly

Từ đồng nghĩa

• pale
• pallid
• sick
• wide area network
• WAN