wear down

1. 1.

   exhaust or get tired through overuse or great strain or stress

   “We wore ourselves out on this hike”

   Synonymstirewear upontire outwearwearyjadewear outoutwearfag outfagfatigue

   Broaderindispose

   Narrowerexhaustovertire
2. 2.

   deteriorate through use or stress

   “The constant friction wore out the cloth”

   Synonymswearwear offwear outwear thin

   Broaderdeteriorate

   Narrowerablatescuff

Questions about wear down

What does wear down mean?

wear down means "exhaust or get tired through overuse or great strain or stress". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for wear down?

Close synonyms include tire, wear upon, tire out, wear, weary. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is wear down a common word?

wear down is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.