DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 Now adv.
 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.