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Wear off   /wɛr ɔf/   Listen
verb
Wear  v. t.  (past wore; past part. worn; pres. part. wearing)  
1.
To carry or bear upon the person; to bear upon one's self, as an article of clothing, decoration, warfare, bondage, etc.; to have appendant to one's body; to have on; as, to wear a coat; to wear a shackle. "What compass will you wear your farthingale?" "On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore."
2.
To have or exhibit an appearance of, as an aspect or manner; to bear; as, she wears a smile on her countenance. "He wears the rose of youth upon him." "His innocent gestures wear A meaning half divine."
3.
To use up by carrying or having upon one's self; hence, to consume by use; to waste; to use up; as, to wear clothes rapidly.
4.
To impair, waste, or diminish, by continual attrition, scraping, percussion, on the like; to consume gradually; to cause to lower or disappear; to spend. "That wicked wight his days doth wear." "The waters wear the stones."
5.
To cause or make by friction or wasting; as, to wear a channel; to wear a hole.
6.
To form or shape by, or as by, attrition. "Trials wear us into a liking of what, possibly, in the first essay, displeased us."
To wear away, to consume; to impair, diminish, or destroy, by gradual attrition or decay.
To wear off, to diminish or remove by attrition or slow decay; as, to wear off the nap of cloth.
To wear on or To wear upon, to wear. (Obs.) "(I) weared upon my gay scarlet gites (gowns.)"
To wear out.
(a)
To consume, or render useless, by attrition or decay; as, to wear out a coat or a book.
(b)
To consume tediously. "To wear out miserable days."
(c)
To harass; to tire. "(He) shall wear out the saints of the Most High."
(d)
To waste the strength of; as, an old man worn out in military service.
To wear the breeches. See under Breeches. (Colloq.)


Wear  v. i.  (past wore; past part. worn; pres. part. wearing)  
1.
To endure or suffer use; to last under employment; to bear the consequences of use, as waste, consumption, or attrition; as, a coat wears well or ill; hence, sometimes applied to character, qualifications, etc.; as, a man wears well as an acquaintance.
2.
To be wasted, consumed, or diminished, by being used; to suffer injury, loss, or extinction by use or time; to decay, or be spent, gradually. "Thus wore out night." "Away, I say; time wears." "Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou and this people that is with thee." "His stock of money began to wear very low." "The family... wore out in the earlier part of the century."
To wear off, to pass away by degrees; as, the follies of youth wear off with age.
To wear on, to pass on; as, time wears on.
To wear weary, to become weary, as by wear, long occupation, tedious employment, etc.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Wear off" Quotes from Famous Books



... he had filed, is one of the mysteries of retributive justice with which this story has nothing to do. Suffice the fact that Mr. Hennage had stayed away from San Pasqual six months, and six months is a sufficient lapse of time for any ordinary public excitement to wear off, particularly in the desert. He had not intended returning so soon, but a letter from Dan Pennycook, to whom Mr. Hennage had communicated his whereabouts, charging the yardmaster to keep him in touch with affairs at the ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... one of the rocking chairs with a sigh of content. Things were beginning to shake down a little better. There had been a time yesterday when he feared that everything was off. He knew Nora's temper of old and he knew his wife's jealous fear of her criticism. It would take some rubbing to wear off the sharp corners. But things were coming out all right, after all. They'd soon be working together like a well-broken team. Gertie had been nasty about the bread. But apparently everything was patched up. And with Frank once gone, and the new chap—a man ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... that his men would have been worth more if marched from the place of enlistment directly into the open field, than they were after months in a place where the whole tendency was to chill their patriotism by making them feel useless, and to wear off the fine edge of their patriotism by subjection to the merest mechanical process ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... his body, the rope then passing behind his body, thence to the neck of a horse on which rode the master, with a club about three feet long, and of the size of a hoe handle; which, by the appearance of the slave, had been used on his head, so as to wear off the hair and skin in several places, and the blood was running freely from his mouth and nose; his heels very much bruised by the horse's feet, as his master had rode on him because he would not go fast enough. Such was the slave's appearance when passing through where ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... action of the germ-plasm, is a contingency that hardly needs to be reckoned with. Even in case the evidence were much stronger than it is, the damage done may only be a physiological or chemical induction, the effects of which will wear off in a few generations; rather than a radical change in the hereditary constituents of the germ-plasm. The germ-plasm is so carefully isolated and guarded that it is almost impossible to injure it, except by treatment so severe as to kill it altogether; and the degeneracy with ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson


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