worn

Pronunciation

• IPA: /wɔːn/ (UK); /woɹn/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It is the past participle of wear, used as an adjective;^[2][3][4] the verb is from Old English werian, whose participle was geworen in Etymonline's account.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Impaired or damaged by wear or use: 1508 in the OED,^[6] about 1500 in Etymonline,^[2] late Middle English in SOED.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Of persons, wasted or exhausted by toil, age or anxiety, it is also from 1508.^[6] Of words or ideas, hackneyed or trite, it is from 1569,^[6] and of land, no longer fertile, from 1681.^[6] Worn-out is from the 1610s of clothing and about 1700 of persons.^[2] In Scots a wornweb was a thin, badly spun cloth.^[7]

Timeline

• 1508 – damaged by use; exhausted.^[6]
• 1569 – hackneyed.^[6]
• 1610s – worn-out, of clothing.^[2]
• 1681 – of land, exhausted.^[6]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Damaged or thinned by long use: a worn carpet.
2. Looking tired and strained; haggard.
3. Overused; hackneyed.

Word family

• wornness
• footworn
• overworn
• shopworn
• timeworn
• toilworn
• unworn
• waterworn

Related words

• wear
• worn-out
• outworn
• well-worn

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)