Now

Now, a. Existing at the present time; present. [R.] "Our now happiness." Glanvill.

Now, n. The present time or moment; the present.

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past;
But an eternal now does ever last.

Now (?), adv. [OE. nou, nu, AS. nū, nu; akin to D., OS., & OHG. nu, G. nu, nun, Icel., nū, Dan., Sw., & Goth. nu, L. nunc, Gr. ?, ?, Skr. nu, nū. √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.

2. Very lately; not long ago.

They that but now, for honor and for plate,
Made the sea blush with blood, resign their hate.

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.

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 ?

Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is ?

Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a robber.

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.

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.