to wear out your welcome
3
7.0
- idiom
- Informal
:
agotar la bienvenida
- If you stay too long at your friend's house, you might wear out your welcome.
Examples
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You might not have worn out your welcome with the fräulein with your drunken boorish behavior... ...but you have worn out your welcome with me.
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Stewart wore out his welcome long ago by not sticking with the team during the season.
Blog text (22) -
I'll let you know if you wear out your welcome.
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But this was the perfect opportunity to lay the greatest hits on us without wearing out his welcome.
Blog text (7) -
You have worn out your welcome, sir!
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"Come on, Mrs. Murphy, I think you're wearing out your welcome.
Fiction book (1995) -
It appears they've... worn out their welcome.
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I'm afraid you've worn out your welcome, Prince Abubu.
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He'd just feel vaguely, sickeningly lost, as though he'd worn out his welcome.
Fiction book (1991) -
LaHair already refused a move to 3B the team requested, so he's probably worn out his welcome with them in addition to his dreadful second half.
Blog text (22)
Synonyms
1
7.0
Stay too long and make people feel annoyed
To go to someone's home when they do not want you there
Antonyms
How Welcome
Surface Forms
Morphology
The expression uses the phrasal verb 'wear out' (to exhaust or use up) applied to 'welcome' (hospitality), so a learner who knows both constituents can plausibly infer that it means exhausting someone's hospitality by staying too long. However, the shift from physical/usable exhaustion to a social, metaphorical sense of becoming unwelcome is non-literal and requires some pragmatic inference, so it is not fully transparent.
Etymology
Wear out your welcome comes from the image of a friendly greeting, the welcome, being slowly used up—like clothes that get thin when you wear them too often, so people grow tired of your visit. So, it means 'to stay too long' and make your host want you to leave.