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Glite Dictionary
😠 To lose patience 🧶 To get weaker
to wear thin

to wear thin

1 5.6
Become thin or damaged from use, like a carpet
  • phrasal verb
  • /wɛr θɪn/
translation icon : desgastarse
  • His excuses are starting to wear thin with the manager, who expects better performance.

Examples

  • The endless delays on the project are making everyone's enthusiasm wear thin.

  • After months of constant criticism, her patience began to wear thin.

  • By the time the latest ideas reach Chicago, they're worn thin and easy to see through.

    Academic text (1990)

  • Everyone laughed, proving neither joke had yet worn thin.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • Friday is really wearing thin, but I guess it's necessary since apparently there hasn't been anything else going on here in Philadelphia.

    Blog text (10)

  • His jeans were worn thin from the activity, which Bart said he did without thinking and could not stop completely.

    Academic text (1990)

  • The dearth of gasoline has worn thin the patience of some drivers.

    Blog text (8)

  • Here and there, the carpet had worn thin in places; some of the goldfish had nearly vanished.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • The leather soles of her cloth half-boots were worn thin.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • I haven't watched much of Heroes since its first season, as it wore thin quickly for me, but I accidentally flipped on the program the other night, just in time to hear McDowell recite from the Bard.

    Blog text (3)

Synonyms

to deteriorate
vsto wear thin
146 5.9

To get worse in quality, condition, or value

involves getting weaker or less effective specifically from constant use or friction
to wear down
vsto wear thin
27 4.1

Slowly make a person or thing weaker by repeated pressure

focuses on general weakening and getting less effective rather than causing tiredness
to wear off
vsto wear thin
4 4.2

Become faded or damaged from use

emphasizes friction or constant stress rather than general causes
to wear away
vsto wear thin
2 3.8

To slowly remove material by rubbing or long use

refers to general weakening and reduced effectiveness rather than physical removal

Antonyms

to strengthen
327 3.0

To make muscles, relationships, or groups stronger

to reinforce
99 3.9

Make something stronger by adding support or extra parts

How Worn

to fall apart
155 2.8
to wear out
26 2.3
to wear thin
1 5.6
to deteriorate
146 5.9

Surface Forms

wear thin infinitive
wearing thin present participle
wears thin third person singular
wore thin past
worn thin past participle

Morphology

wear + thin

The sense arises directly from combining 'wear' (to be gradually reduced by use) with 'thin' (becoming insubstantial), so the metaphor of something being worn down to thinness transparently yields 'become less strong/effective.' This depletion metaphor is cross-linguistically common and follows normal compositional logic, so a B1 learner who knows both words will very likely infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Wear thin comes from the picture of cloth or a carpet rubbed so long that it wears and becomes thin. So, it means 'to become weak or damaged'.