What does “verwelken” mean in German?

Verwelken means to wilt — what flowers do once their week is up. The base is welk, “wilted,” and here the prefix ver- marks the shift into that final state: a fresh bouquet doesn’t just get a little welk; it verwelkt — droops, browns, and gives up entirely. Ver- does many jobs in German, but in words like this one it marks a change carried through to its end.

That same ver- links a small family of “run all the way to the end” verbs: verblühen (to finish blooming), verhungern (to starve to death), verdursten (to die of thirst). Each takes an ordinary idea — flowering, hunger, thirst — and carries it to the point of no return. In the clip the speaker mourns a gifted bouquet, sliding from welk (the state) to verwelkt (the whole slow collapse). Schade — a shame.