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.
now now
adv : interjection of rebuke