to wear out one's welcome
1
7.0
- idiom
- Informal
- I gotta go before I wear out my welcome.
- want to wear out my welcome
Examples
-
After a week of visiting, I could tell I was starting to wear out my welcome.
-
She stayed with a relative until she, in her words, "wore out her welcome," and would then move on to a different relative.
Academic text (2006) -
My mother called and asked if I'd worn out my welcome.
Fiction book (1992) -
Well, I didn't mean to wear out my welcome.
-
You've worn out your welcome at this house, Sam.
-
I've worn out my welcome.
-
I don't want to wear out my welcome, heh.
Fiction book (2002) -
I don't want to stay too long and wear out my welcome at the party.
-
He quickly realized that he had worn out his welcome at his friend's house.
Synonyms
3
5.5
To stay somewhere longer than you are welcome
2
4.6
Stay somewhere longer than is safe or needed
2
7.0
To stay too long as a guest so the host wants you to leave
Antonyms
How Welcome
Surface Forms
Morphology
The verb phrase 'wear out' (to tire or exhaust) combined with 'welcome' (acceptance or goodwill) yields a coherent figurative meaning: to exhaust someone’s goodwill or hospitality by staying too long. This mapping is metaphorical but predictable from the constituents for learners who know the verbal sense and the noun/adjective 'welcome', so it is not fully transparent yet not wholly idiomatic.
Etymology
The idiom wear out one's welcome comes from a simple picture: a guest visits so often that the host's welcome is worn out, like a doormat or path that has been used until it is thin. That's why it means 'to stay too long and annoy people'.