wear out
Formswears out, wearing out, wore out, worn out
- 1To make something damaged, useless or ineffective through long use, especially hard, heavy or careless use.
Heavy trucks wear out the road surface far faster than cars do.
She wore out three keyboards while writing her first novel.
Note
The object can sit on either side of out: wear out the shoes or wear the shoes out. A pronoun has to go in the middle, so it is wear them out, never wear out them. Worn out is the standard participle; a character in Joseph C. Lincoln's Mr. Pratt's Patients says the old handles "was wore out," a regional shape standard English avoids.
- 2To make someone exhausted or weary, or add to their tiredness, through continued strain or effort.
Months of constant travel finally wore out the band, and they canceled the last shows.
Our deeper bench let us wear out the other team in the second half.
Similarexhaust, tire, drain, fatigue, weary
Oppositerefresh, invigorate
Note
With a person or an animal as the object, the wear is fatigue rather than damage. In Anna Sewell's Black Beauty a driver is told that his restless whip, "if it does not wear you out, it wears your horse out." The progressive suits strain that is still going on (you kids are wearing me out), and in sport the idea turns tactical: tiring an opponent until they give way.
- 3To deteriorate or stop working well after long use, exposure or strain.
Brake pads wear out sooner if you ride the brakes down long hills.
The canvas awning over the porch wore out after years of sun and rain.
Similardeteriorate, degrade
- 4To become exhausted or weary from continued strain or effort.
By the tenth mile, even the leaders were starting to wear out.
Without proper breaks, even experienced nurses wear out over a double shift.
Note
The reflexive wear oneself out puts the cause in the person's own effort, as with the railway builders who "wore themselves out in the process." Without the reflexive, as in I'm wearing out, the verb simply reports fatigue setting in, and it often sounds casual, the kind of thing said at the end of a long evening.
- 5To wear a piece of clothing in public, outside the home.
Is this dress too formal to wear out to brunch?
Those leggings are meant for the gym, not for wearing out in the evening.
Note
Out here means out of the house: a dress you could wear out to brunch, sweatpants meant for loafing at home. Because worn out also means used until ruined, a sentence like they're not meant to be worn out can be read two ways, and context, or a fuller phrase such as worn out in public, has to settle it.
- 6To wear a shirt untucked, hanging outside the pants, in a casual way.
On casual Fridays, most of the staff wear out their shirts instead of tucking them in.
Shirts with a straight, even hem are usually designed to be worn out.
Note
Out is the opposite of tucked in here, and the choice is a matter of dress code: a dress shirt should be tucked in, but a t-shirt can be worn out. Untucked is the plainer word for the same casual look.
- 7To punish someone by spanking.
If y'all don't quit fighting, I'm fixing to wear out the both of you.
Her daddy wore out her brother for sneaking the truck out at night.
Similarspank, whip, thrash, whup
Note
This is chiefly Southern US speech, heard in family talk about discipline, where a parent threatens to wear out a misbehaving child. Elsewhere a listener may hear tiring someone out instead, so outside the region spank is the clearer word.
Practice
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