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wear down

wear down
W w

Transcription

    • US Pronunciation
    • US IPA
    • UK Pronunciation
    • UK IPA
    • [wair doun]
    • /wɛər daʊn/
    • /weə(r) daʊn/
    • US Pronunciation
    • US IPA
    • [wair doun]
    • /wɛər daʊn/

Definitions of wear down words

  • verb with object wear down to carry or have on the body or about the person as a covering, equipment, ornament, or the like: to wear a coat; to wear a saber; to wear a disguise. 1
  • verb with object wear down to have or use on the person habitually: to wear a wig. 1
  • verb with object wear down to bear or have in one's aspect or appearance: to wear a smile; to wear an air of triumph. 1
  • verb with object wear down to cause (garments, linens, etc.) to deteriorate or change by wear: Hard use has worn these gloves. 1
  • verb with object wear down to impair, deteriorate, or consume gradually by use or any continued process: Long illness had worn the bloom from her cheeks. 1
  • verb with object wear down to waste or diminish gradually by rubbing, scraping, washing, etc.: The waves have worn these rocks. 1

Information block about the term

Origin of wear down

First appearance:

before 900
One of the 4% oldest English words
before 900; (v.) Middle English weren to have (clothes) on the body, waste, damage, suffer waste or damage, Old English werian; cognate with Old Norse verja, Gothic wasjan to clothe; (noun) late Middle English were act of carrying on the body, derivative of the v.; akin to Latin vestis clothing (see vest)

Historical Comparancy

Parts of speech for Wear down

noun
adjective
verb
adverb
pronoun
preposition
conjunction
determiner
exclamation

wear down popularity

A common word. It’s meaning is known to most children of preschool age. About 99% of English native speakers know the meaning and use the word.
Most Europeans know this English word. The frequency of it’s usage is somewhere between "mom" and "screwdriver".

wear down usage trend in Literature

This diagram is provided by Google Ngram Viewer

Synonyms for wear down

verb wear down

  • abrade — To abrade something means to scrape or wear down its surface by rubbing it.
  • bankrupted — Law. a person who upon his or her own petition or that of his or her creditors is adjudged insolvent by a court and whose property is administered for and divided among his or her creditors under a bankruptcy law.
  • bedraggle — to make (hair, clothing, etc) limp, untidy, or dirty, as with rain or mud
  • burn out — If a fire burns itself out, it stops burning because there is nothing left to burn.
  • bushing — an adaptor having ends of unequal diameters, often with internal screw threads, used to connect pipes of different sizes

See also

Matching words

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