Now \Now\, adv. [OE. nou, nu, AS. n[=u], nu; akin to D., OS., &
OHG. nu, G. nu, nun, Icel., n[=u], Dan., Sw., & Goth. nu, L.
nunc, Gr. ?, ?, Skr. nu, n[=u]. [root]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.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
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