to wear on

23 4.9

Time passes slowly and feels long

phrasal verb
/wɛr ɑn/

: pasar

As the night wore on, the temperature dropped significantly, making it uncomfortable outside.
as the evening wore on
as time wore on
year wore on

And then as time wears on, laziness kicks in.

Autoplay Next

Examples

As the meeting wore on, several participants started to lose focus.
As the days wore on, one thing was clear to both Franqois and Perrault.

Fiction book (2000)
As the night wore on, one by one, we began to call her back.

Fiction book (1994)
As the morning wore on, she felt tired and found it difficult to keep her eyes open.

Fiction book (1997)
But as the day wore on, he felt a strange desire to be outside with them.

Fiction book (1995)
As the summer wore on, I dared to slip in closer, near enough to hear.

Fiction book (1999)
The staff know that many people, as time wears on, reconsider.

Academic text (1997)
However, as the day wore on, a strange elation came over Halka.

Fiction book (1997)
As a battle wore on, the firing rate would fall dramatically due to exhaustion and casualties.
She felt more tired as the afternoon wore on due to the long hours of work.

Antonyms

to speed up

161 2.5

To make something move or happen faster

to fly by

16 2.2

To move past something while in the air

How Slow

to drag on

42 3.9

to drag out

Informal

23 5.1

to wear on

23 4.9

to pass

761 1.0

to fly by

23 3.3

Surface Forms

wear on infinitive

wearing on present participle

wears on third person singular

wore on past

worn on past participle

Morphology

wear + on

The temporal sense 'to pass slowly/gradually' is metaphorically linked to 'wear' (gradual wearing or tiring) combined with 'on' (continuation), so a learner who knows both words can often infer that something continues and diminishes over time. However, the specific idiomatic use for elapsed time with a nuance of tediousness is not fully literal or fully predictable, so it requires some exposure.

Etymology

Wear on creates the picture of something slowly rubbing thin: wear means to rub or use away and on shows it keeps happening over time. So when time wears on, it 'passes slowly' and people often feel tired or bored.