worn

1. 1
   adjective

   Damaged and shabby as a result of heavy or repeated use.

   The armchair's worn upholstery showed where countless people had sat.

   The ancient coin was so worn that its inscription had vanished.

   Similarshabby, threadbare, frayed, tattered, battered

   Oppositenew, pristine, unused

   Note

   The adjective takes degrees: a coat can be more worn than another, and the most worn step on a stair is the one everyone uses. Melville's The Confidence-Man (1857) describes mourning clothes as "neat, but sadly worn," which shows the point of the word. Worn names the damage of long service, not dirt or neglect, so even a carefully kept thing can be worn.

2. 2
   verb

   Past participle of wear.

   He had worn glasses since childhood.

   The path has been worn down by generations of hikers.

   Note

   The form that builds perfect and passive tenses: has worn, had worn, was worn. Its shape came by analogy with torn from tear and sworn from swear. It should not be confused with wore, the simple past: she wore it, but she has worn it. Because wear can also be intransitive, worn can follow have with no object, as in "the carpet has worn thin."

3. 3
   adjective

   Exhausted and drained of energy, typically after prolonged effort or strain.

   After three sleepless nights with the newborn, both parents seemed utterly worn.

   The marathon left her worn but quietly triumphant at the finish line.

   Similarexhausted, weary, drained, tired, spent

   Oppositerested, fresh, energetic

   Note

   Here the wear is on a person rather than on a thing, and the bare adjective is the shorter form of worn out. The Wesley Naturalist (1889) commends the Lake District to "the jaded and worn." It pairs the word with its near-synonym jaded and uses the two with "the" as a noun for weary people. The same verb wears down both the shabby meaning and this one.

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