outwear
Americanverb (used with object)
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to wear or last longer than; outlast.
a well-made product that outwears its competition.
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to exhaust in strength or endurance.
The daily toil had soon outworn him.
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to outlive or outgrow.
Perhaps he will outwear those eccentricities.
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to wear out; destroy by wearing.
A child outwears clothes quickly.
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to pass (time).
trying to outwear the hours by reading.
verb
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to use up or destroy by wearing
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to last or wear longer than
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to outlive, outgrow, or develop beyond
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to deplete or exhaust in strength, determination, etc
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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outwearsimple
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outwearssimple
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have outwornperfect
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has outwornperfect
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am outwearingprogressive
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are outwearingprogressive
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is outwearingprogressive
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have been outwearingperfect progressive
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has been outwearingperfect progressive
Past
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outworesimple
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had outwornperfect
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was outwearingprogressive
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were outwearingprogressive
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had been outwearingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of outwear
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It was a carnival of outwear that could only be matched by typing “Rococo” into the Amazon search bar.
From Salon ● Jan. 21, 2025
There is an emphasis on architecture in the outwear, but with a more feminine touch.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2023
The luxury outwear maker will hold an investor presentation on Thursday, its first since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the acquisition of streetwear brand Stone Island in 2020.
From Reuters ● May 4, 2022
Notably, this is the second time in recent months that Pelosi’s outwear has made fashion headlines.
From Fox News ● Jun. 14, 2019
Within my heart, these things are small; This is not small, that things outwear I thought were made for ever, yea, all, All things go soon or late, I said.
From The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems by Morris, William
It outwears the protests and appeals of total generations of unhelped, indignant hearts.
From Abraham Lincoln's Cardinal Traits; A Study in Ethics, with an Epilogue Addressed to Theologians by Beardslee, Clark S.
Kiss Delia's hand for her sweet prophet's sake, Whose not affected but well couchèd tears Have power, have worth, a marble mind to shake, Whose fame no iron-age or time outwears.
From Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles Phillis - Licia by Crow, Martha Foote
"Love is the greatest Amulet that makes this world a garden: and 'Hope comes to all' outwears the accidents of life; and reaches with tremulous hands beyond the grave and Death."
From The Great Amulet by Diver, Maud
For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.
From Bulchevy's Book of English Verse by Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas, Sir
The first cost is greater, but it outwears muslin or linen.
From Textiles and Clothing by Watson, Kate Heintz
But his rival, the Briton, had qualities which outwore him, and the patriarchal and stable methods of the Hudson's Bay Company prevailed in the end.
From Old Quebec The Fortress of New France by Bryan, Claude Glennon
For, we never got over it; the threadbare Orrery outwore our mutual tenderness; the man with the wand was too much for the boy with the bow.
From The Uncommercial Traveller by Dickens, Charles
Gladsome and gay forget thine every grief * Full often grief the wisest hearts outwore: Thought is but folly in the feeble slave * Shun it and so be saved evermore.
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01 by Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
How the dream outwore the night and strengthened as morning broke gray and cold, and quiet with the stillness of the desert, we need not follow.
From The Cup of Trembling and Other Stories by Foote, Mary Hallock
Thou sayest my faith has been forfeit, O fair in thy glittering raiment; But I wearied my steed and outwore it, And for what but the love that bare thee?
From The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald by Collingwood, W. G. (William Gershom)
“Only old, outworn notions stand in the way of these ideas.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 2, 2026
Could I remount the river of my years To the first fountain of our smiles and tears I would not trace again its stream of hours Between its outworn banks of withered flowers.
From Salon ● Dec. 25, 2021
That “hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn,” as science fiction author Wilson Tucker memorably put it when he coined the term in 1941.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 17, 2021
Labor-intensive, visually compelling works by the Bahamian artist seem to challenge outworn heroes and cultural assumptions of the Western canon, yet some of Strachan’s simplest pieces may be his most pleasing.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 6, 2018
And as I undressed I saw my outworn clothes and realized that I'd have to shed them.
From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
That gave father-strength for bearing Famine-need and sword, Honor death itself outwearing, And it gave accord.
From Poems and Songs by Palmer, Arthur Hubbell
Lo! on pinions bright, The Love-god comes, a yellow cincture bearing, To bind thee ever to thy dear delight, In nuptial knot, all other knots outwearing.
From The Elegies of Tibullus Being the Consolations of a Roman Lover Done in English Verse by Williams, Theodore C.
But neither at the candle-lighted breakfast, nor later, when Ballard asked him if he were fit for a leisurely ride to the southern watershed for the day's outwearing, did he speak of young Carson's desertion.
From The King of Arcadia by Lynde, Francis
Again, it was her heart "outwearing its sheath," as she put it.
From Elsie Marley, Honey by Gray, Joslyn
I had asked her to go home with me, and she had refused because she is so afraid of outwearing her welcome.
From Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College by Flower, Jessie Graham [pseud.]
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.
