threadbare

[thred-bair]

adjective

1. having the nap worn off so as to lay bare the threads of the warp and woof, as a fabric, garment, etc.

2. wearing threadbare clothes; shabby or poor.

   a threadbare old man.

3. meager, scanty, or poor.

   a threadbare emotional life.

4. hackneyed; trite; ineffectively stale.

   threadbare arguments.

threadbare

/ ˈθrɛdˌbɛə /

adjective

1. (of cloth, clothing, etc) having the nap worn off so that the threads are exposed

2. meagre or poor

   a threadbare existence

3. hackneyed

   a threadbare argument

4. wearing threadbare clothes; shabby

Other Word Forms

• threadbareness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of threadbare¹

First recorded in 1325–75, threadbare is from the Middle English word thredbare. See thread, bare ¹

Example Sentences

Its so-called institutions, among them our nation’s increasingly threadbare 18th-century Constitution, are visibly crumbling, as if eaten away from within by an army of persistent termites.

Read more on Salon

Her attorney, Abbe Lowell, dismissed the referral as “three pages of stale, threadbare allegations.”

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He was being used as an emergency striker with Isak an outcast, so how can Howe contemplate a sale when resources are now so threadbare?

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The talk of “crime” is even more threadbare than the usual right-wing pretexts.

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Now the Trojans enter his fourth with a raw, unproven commodity at quarterback, a threadbare linebacker room, and an inexperienced offensive line that could already be down a projected starter.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• faded 
• ratty 
• scruffy 
• shabby 
• shopworn 
• tacky 
• tattered