diminished in value or usefulness through wear, use, handling, etc..
The car's front tires were very worn, with little tread left.
showing a considerable level of use or wear.
He read his speech from two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been folded and unfolded many times.
wearied; exhausted.
She looked worn but joyful as she held her newborn daughter.
a combining form with the meaning “showing a specified level of use, deterioration, or consumption”.
Before you toss that little-worn top, consider if it could be given a second life.
a combining form with the meaning “showing wear, deterioration, or exhaustion from a specified cause”.
The old bridges fit the landscape, maybe because they are as windworn and aged as the land around them.
The knights were weary and battleworn when they returned to the castle.
affected, esp adversely, by long use or action
a worn suit
haggard; drawn
exhausted; spent
First recorded in 1500–10, for the adjective
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Worn down by a slew of rejections and “ghosted” applications, she has focused on her skin care business more recently.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 14, 2025
Worn for a couple of weeks, the Zio monitor looks for irregular heart rhythms, such as atrial fibrillation—a racing heartbeat that can presage a stroke or heart attack.
From Barron's • Nov. 5, 2025
Worn out by the strains of producing a strip a week for more than 40 years, he decided, in 2000, to end the cartoon.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 21, 2025
Worn, weathered and vandalized, missing an arm and the discus itself, it was quietly removed in 1970 and put in storage, and was not missed by many.
From New York Times • May 2, 2024
Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
