weariness

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English werinesse,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English wērignes,^[2][5][6] also spelled wærigness,^[3] formed from Old English wērig + -nes,^[2][5] that is, weary and -ness.^[7][3] The Old English adjective is cognate with Old Saxon wōrig (“worn out”), Old High German wuorīg (“drunk”) and Old Frisian wirch (“tired”).^[7] It is from Proto-Germanic *worigaz, a word of unknown origin,^[3] and the OED too calls the Germanic base uncertain.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Extreme tiredness from exertion, illness or lack of sleep: in the Old English translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History,^[7][6] dated about 900 in the 1989 edition of the OED.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its bodily sense since Old English, and Chaucer and Gower used it in Middle English.^[7][9] The sense of boredom or discontent with something tedious was dated to 1526 in the 1989 edition of the OED,^[8] and Etymonline dates mental languor to the 1520s;^[3] but the OED's revision of 2025 carries it back to an Old English homily.^[7] The same revision moves the third sense, a thing that wearies, from 1560^[8] to before 1530, in T. Lupset.^[7] Johnson (1755) separated lassitude, fatigue as a cause of lassitude, impatience of anything, and tediousness.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 900 – extreme tiredness, in the Old English translation of Bede.^[8][7]
• Old English – ennui or discontent from something tedious, in a homily.^[7] The 1989 edition of the OED dated this sense from 1526,^[8] and Etymonline from the 1520s.^[3]
• before 1530 – something that wearies; a tedious thing.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Extreme tiredness or fatigue: Weariness overtook the hikers at the top of the pass.^[2][7]
2. Tedium or ennui caused by something dull or repeated; reluctance to go on with it.^[2][7]
3. Something tiring or tiresome.^[7][10]

Related words

• weary

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
6. ^ a b Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.