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Wear out   /wɛr aʊt/   Listen
Wear out

verb
1.
Exhaust or get tired through overuse or great strain or stress.  Synonyms: fag, fag out, fatigue, jade, outwear, tire, tire out, wear, wear down, wear upon, weary.
2.
Go to pieces.  Synonyms: break, bust, fall apart, wear.  "The gears wore out" , "The old chair finally fell apart completely"
3.
Deteriorate through use or stress.  Synonyms: wear, wear down, wear off, wear thin.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wear out" Quotes from Famous Books



... white man to marry an Injun. The red never dies out in the woman, but the white in the man always changes into a dirty, muddy red. I laid awake a long while tryin' to figger out a way to block his game, but the only thing I could think of was to tie him up and wear out a cinch on him. Just as I was dozin' off I had an idy. I didn't like it much at first; I had to swaller hard to down it, but the more I studied it the better it looked, so for fear I'd weaken I rolled ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... as yours," he replied; "the teatrino is dirty and they soon wear out. My great-coat appears to be fresh because I seldom put it on. I shall use it in Catania to conceal the shabbiness of my ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... Hills.—The drainage of the western slopes of the Suliman range finding no exit on that side has had to wear out ways for itself towards the plains which lie between the foot of the hills and the Indus. This is the explanation of the large number of passes, about one hundred, which lead from the plains into the Suliman hills. The chief ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... done that, there is the other. Two years hence, how you will wonder that there ever was a time when you had not a stitch of work in the house! Wedding clothes last about two years, and then they all wear out together. I wish you joy of the work you will have to do then—if nothing should come between you ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... woman, time has been when thou wert to us as the edge of the poisonous sword or the midnight torch of the murderer; but now I know not how it will be, or if the grief which thou hast given me will ever wear out or not. And now that I have beheld thee, I have little to do to blame my son; for indeed when I look on thee I cannot deem that there is any evil in thee. Yea, however it may be, take thou this gift as the ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... the first place the best promoter of health. Repining and secret murmurs of heart give imperceptible strokes to those delicate fibres of which the vital parts are composed, and wear out the machine insensibly; not to mention those violent ferments which they stir up in the blood, and those irregular disturbed motions, which they raise ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... but it returned more money, for the labor used upon it, than anything else; enough more, in his opinion to pay for the wearing out of the land. If he was well paid for it, he did not know why he should not wear out his land. His tobacco-fields were nearly all in a distant and lower part of his plantation; land which had been neglected before his time, in a great measure, because it had been sometimes flooded, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... perhaps. Possibly try out a boarding-house and hunt for a prospective office. By the way, Captain, you don't happen to know of a good, commodious two by four office that I could hire at a two by four figure, do you? One not so far from the main street that I should wear out an extravagant amount of shoe leather walking ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... take physic for that?—This arguing makes you mad; but it is true right reason, not to be disproved.—I am glad at heart to hear poor Stella is better; use exercise and walk, spend pattens and spare potions, wear out clogs and waste claret. Have you found out my pun of the fishmonger? don't read a word more till you have got it. And Stella is handsome again, you say? and is she fat? I have sent to Leigh the set of Examiners: the first thirteen were written by several hands, some good, some bad; ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... expression: it was gentle and feminine, but clouded by a certain quiet reserve, from which her mother's face was free. If we dare to look closely enough, may we not observe that the moral force of character and the higher intellectual capacities in parents seem often to wear out mysteriously in the course of transmission to children? In these days of insidious nervous exhaustion and subtly-spreading nervous malady, is it not possible that the same rule may apply, less rarely than we are willing to admit, to the bodily gifts ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... the side door when you see her coming. Get married in summer and have a rose wedding, and we'll all be bridesmaids. I pine to be a bridesmaid, with everything new from head to foot, and no nasty old clothes to wear out. That's the worst of being number five! I never have everything new at once. There's always a hat, or a jacket, or a blouse that has to be finished off. Let's sit down and talk about it now! There's half an hour before lunch, and it's impossible to do any work. Maud, sit down and take ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... certainly four, so, when comparing a worse present state with a better which is past, you cannot but feel sorrow.[194] It is not cured by reason, but by the incursion of present objects, which wear out the past. You need not murmur, though you are sorry.' MURISON. 'But St. Paul says, "I have learnt, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content."' JOHNSON. 'Sir, that relates to riches and poverty; for we see St. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... die," stated the old man, "I'm going to live to turn into a grindstone and wear out. But it's a fact. There's plenty left can ride a log all right, but they're a tough lot. It's too close here ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... measure of it is too frequently the length of the purse on the one side or the other. A Railway Company, who has been cast in damages for 1,000 pounds, can soon wear out a poor plaintiff. One of the greatest evils of modern litigation is the frequency with which ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... agreeable to my aunt, whose taste was evidently beyond what Albany could afford, or she would not have sent me to the Modern Athens to buy the right thing. Nothing that would break; else, Sevres china would be nice: I might get a small plate, or a dish, for the money. Clothes wear out. Furniture,—you don't want to say, "This chair, or this bureau or looking-glass, is my Aunt Allen's gift." No, indeed! It must be something uncommon, recherche, tasteful, durable, and, if possible, something that will show well and sound well always. If it were only to spend the money, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... eyes down from the sky where he had been allowing them to soar, and fixed them on his last summer's tan shoes. They were whole yet, but had lost their freshness. He could have new ones now, he reflected, without waiting for these old ones to wear out. ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... king. "Some one is here who will wear out my patience. Go at once and put a stop to the execution," he continued, addressing the grand provost. "You will answer with your own body for that of the criminal, my friend. This affair must be better sifted, and I reserve to myself the doing of it. Set the prisoner at liberty provisionally; ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac

... the harmony of a lyre does when the lyre itself is broken. And Cebes, though he admits that the soul is more durable than the body, yet objects that it is not, therefore, of necessity immortal, but may in time wear out; and it is by no means clear that this ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato

... luxuries? She had no one now for whose old age she could furnish ease, or for the aims and accidents of whose rising station she need lay by welcome stores; she had not even a nephew or niece to tease her. She would not wear out the talents a generous man had admired on a mass of knaves and villains, coxcombs and butterflies; she would not expose her poor mind and heart to further deterioration. She would fly from the danger; she would retire, and board with ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... at the Home, he had never before felt the power to express his gratitude for the welcome which had been accorded him—the welcome which seemed to wear and wear, as if it were all wool and a yard wide, and could never wear out. ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund

... am not; I am weary of this daily toiling. The world is not a workshop to wear out souls in. Man has perverted its use. Life, and thought, and brain, are but crucibles to smelt gold in. Nobleness is made the slave of avarice, just as a pure stream is taught to turn a mill-wheel and become foul ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... so manlike as you may be," declared Ruy Sandoval,—and laughed as the angry color swept the face of the lad. "By our Lady, I've known many a dame of high degree would trade several of her virtues for such eyes and lips! Tush—boy! Have no shame to possess them since they will wear out in their own time! I can think of no service you could be to me—yet—I have another gentleman of the court with me holding a like office—Name of the Devil:—it would be a fine jest to bestow upon him a helper for the ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... alcohol to quicken the circulation, quicken the secretion, and help to preserve the vitality. But the experience which was learned here tended to show in the most distinct manner that that very old and apparently rational idea was fallacious. Such stimulation only tended ultimately to wear out the powers of the body, as well as change the physical conditions under which the body worked. True lowness meant practical over-fatigue, and when the body was spurred on, or stimulated, over-fatigue was simply intensified and increased. What, therefore, was wanted was not stimulation, ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... the heat of the lights, the wires, etc., we have located them in the most distant corner of the quadrangle. The negative, you see, represents our actual invested capital to a considerable extent. The prints wear out and frequently large sections are destroyed and have to be reprinted. Then sometimes we can reissue old subjects. All in all we guard the negative with the care a bank would give ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... but at times they were arranged to settle some question of moral or physical superiority. Then one boy put a chip on his shoulder and dared the other to knock it off. It took a great while to bring the champions to blows, and I have known the mere preparatory insults of a fight of this kind to wear out the spirit of the combatants and the patience of the spectators, so that not a blow was struck, finally, and ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells

... comes to light for the inexperienced eye one of those things which put fetters in the dark, as it were, on the action of the mind, and wear out in secret the powers of ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... the crown." But it was replied by Burke, who usually exhausted every question he took in hand, that such a bill would rather tend to augment that influence, since "the crown, by its constant stated power, influence, and revenue, would be able to wear out all opposition at elections; that it would not abate the interest or inclination of ministers to apply that interest to the electors; on the contrary, it would render it more necessary to them, if they desired to have a majority in Parliament, to increase the means of that ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... of laughter, in which of course I joined. I must explain that the natives of the Tokelau Group, among whom I had lived, through constantly chewing the tough drupes of the fruit of the fala (pandanus palm) wear out their teeth prematurely, and are sometimes termed "toothless" by other natives of the South Pacific. However, I was to have my own little joke at Viliamu's ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke

... and wear out mine age in a discomfortable, in an unwholesome, in a penurious prison, and so pay my debts with my bones, and recompense the wastefulness of my youth with the beggary of mine age; let me wither in a spittle under sharp, and foul, and infamous diseases, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... Majesty and for the German people, who have been fed upon a diet of victory, and would be beyond measure disquieted by such an admission of failure as I have mentioned. No, the only thing to do, now that we have been so deeply involved, is to persist in the struggle and hope that we may in the end wear out enemies who have hitherto shown ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various

... sometimes inflicted considerable damage upon the enemy. But the Duke of Anjou, or the more experienced leaders commanding in his name, studiously avoided a general engagement. The instructions from the court were to wear out the courage and enthusiasm of Conde's adherents by protracting a tame and monotonous warfare.[616] The prince's true policy, on the contrary, lay in decided action. His soldiers were inferior to none in France. The flower of the higher nobility and the most substantial of the middle classes ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... department, for which he received a bronze medal from the French Government. Writing of this report to his brother Sidney, he says: "This keeps me so busy that I have no time to write, and I have so many irons in the fire that I fear some must burn. But father's motto was—'Better wear out than rust ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... shares it and counts it as a necessity of daily existence. If shoes are too great a luxury, the workwoman clatters along in sabots, congratulating herself that they are cheap and that they never wear out. Custom, long-established and imperative, orders that she shall wear no head-covering, and thus she escapes the revelation bound up in the London worker's bonnet. Inherited instinct and training from birth have taught her hands the utmost skill with the needle. ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... taken?" he was asked. "We will retire beyond the Susquehanna, and then, if necessary, beyond the Alleghanies," answered the general without hesitation. Unwavering in his patriotic faith and resolution, he relied upon the savage resources and the vast wildernesses of his native country to wear out at last the patience and courage of the English generals. At the end of the campaign, Washington, suddenly resuming the offensive, had beaten the king's troops at Trenton and at Princeton one after the other. This brilliant action had restored the affairs of the Americans, and was ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... who have taken food every day, and yet as long as you have known them they have not increased in size. What has food done for their tissues? The class must be told that the tissues of our bodies wear out through use, and that food has furnished the material to replace the worn-out parts. What do we say we are doing to clothes when we replace the worn parts? We are mending or repairing them. What does food do for our worn-out tissues? Food repairs ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education

... grim rammer-and-sponger behind me; "it's all devilish fine for you nobs to look at; but what would you say if you had to holy-stone the deck yourselves, and wear out your elbows in polishing this cursed old iron, besides getting a dozen at the gangway, if you dropped a grease-spot on deck in your mess? Ay, ay, devilish fine for you, but devilish dull ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... seem utterly impossible to wear out a father's affection or a mother's love, and many a child, after the perversities and losses of a misdirected manhood, has found himself welcomed back again to the paternal home, with all the unquenched and unextinguishable ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... must be remembered that part of the cost of the war is being met temporarily by depreciation—railway tracks, rolling stock, locomotives, etc., to mention only one industry,[37] not being replaced as they wear out, or being maintained to the minimum degree necessary. This means that, although less obvious than the reconstruction of ruined parts of Belgium, France, Poland, and Eastern Prussia, repairs and replacements aggregating many millions sterling in cost will ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato

... off her mourning, she spoke to me, saying that she could not afford not to wear out what she already had. I quite agreed; and though I could wish there were less stylishness about her, it is pleasant to one's own eye, and I ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the story out on her knee: Exchange of prisoners having virtually ceased, a number of captive Confederate officers had been started up the Mississippi from New Orleans, under a heavy but unwary guard, on a "tin-clad" steamer, to wear out the rest of the war in a Northern prison. Forbidden to gather even in pairs, they had yet moved freely about, often passing each other closely enough to exchange piecemeal counsels unnoticed, and all at once, at a tap of the boat's bell had sprung, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... saying, that "a good horse will wear out two sets of feet." The meaning of this adage is obvious: a good horse's feet are useless at the time when his other powers are in the prime. Mr. Edward Cottam, of London, in his "Observations upon the ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell

... he did, like the work of all of us, it had its limitations, and it will have its end. The impulse that he communicated, like all impulses that are given from men, will wear out its force. New questions will arise of which the dead leaders never dreamed, and in which they can give no counsel. The perspective of theological thought will alter, the centre of interest will change, a new dialect will begin to be spoken. So it comes to pass that all religious teachers and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... I never was better than I am now—only a little tired now and then. But surely we are put into this world to do good; and it is better to wear out ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson

... mind. He is a high finisher in poetry, whose every work must bear inspection, whose slightest touch is precious—not a coarse dauber who is contented to impose on public wonder and credulity by some huge, ill-executed design, or who endeavours to wear out patience and opposition together by a load of lumbering, feeble, awkward, improgressive lines—on the contrary, Mr. Campbell labours to lend every grace of execution to his subject, while he borrows his ardour and inspiration from it, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... the room to the bookcases. Opening one, she ran her finger-tips tenderly along the stout backs of a row of dark red volumes. "My very own Wide-Awakes! What a storehouse they would be for the little folk! They needn't be allowed to circulate, so they'd not wear out badly. They could just come in and read them there. I was going to give them my little rocking-chair, anyhow. O, dear! I'm afraid I'm really going to let them have you, you dear, dear books. It would be selfish to keep you up here all the time, when I almost never open you. Nobody ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... had Prosper repeated these words, as he walked his cell. With a heart filled with a bitter, determined thirst for vengeance, which gives a man the force and patience to destroy or wear out all obstacles in his way, he would say, "Oh! why am I not at liberty? I am helpless, caged up; but let ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... herself down on her seat again, panting and excited. "Did you wear out Adelaide like that," she cried, "before she ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from anything I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of good men upon their first arrival in Paradise, to wear out the impressions of their last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. My heart melted away ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... many quarters, indeed, they were so familiar fifty years ago that the books on occasions could be dispensed with, and the elder members of families would recite the stories from memory for the delectation of the younger fry, when all foregathered in a crescent before the kitchen fire to wear out the long winter evenings. In this manner, under the dim-flickering light of an "oilie cruizie," in a straggling village in Perthshire, did I learn first of Blue Beard and Jack the Giant Killer, and many another hero of ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... widower, could not be consoled, and tried to wear out his grief in long promenades, going out on clear evenings, holding his little boy by the hand, toward the more solitary places. They followed those fine boulevards, formerly in the suburbs, where there were giant elms, planted in the time of Louis XIV, ditches full of grass, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Excellency the lord lieutenant. Sixteenth. Today it is. In aid of funds for Mercer's hospital. The Messiah was first given for that. Yes. Handel. What about going out there: Ballsbridge. Drop in on Keyes. No use sticking to him like a leech. Wear out my welcome. Sure to know someone on ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... in following through all its sittings and all its twistings this odious and shameful trial, in which the judges' prejudiced servility and scientific subtlety were employed for three months to wear out the courage or overreach the understanding of a young girl of nineteen, who refused at one time to lie, and at another to enter into discussion with them, and made no defence beyond holding her tongue or appealing ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... of cotton and wool mixed, made dem at home wid our own cards and spinning wheels. We made our shoes out of leather tanned at home, but had to use woolen shoes after de war, which would wear out and split ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... opened and then closed. I have myself no idea that she was a countess incognito, or that she had descended from any greater heights than those where Mandeville saw her, but I have always regretted that she went her way so mysteriously and left no glow, and that we shall wear out the remainder of our days without her society. I have looked for her name, but always in vain, among the attendants at the rights-conventions, in the list of those good Americans presented at court, among those skeleton names that appear ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... another, "had scarcely crept out of the egg, when he was off on his travels. He is all life and spirits, I expect he will wear out his horns with running. How charming this is for a mother, is it not Mr. Beetle?" for she knew the stranger ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... already she was more to him than any treasure, and, as he thought, less attainable. Well, there it was, he accepted it as it stood. She had entered into his life, whether for good or for evil remained to be seen. He had no desire to repeat the experiment of his youth—to wear out his heart and exhaust himself in efforts to attain happiness, which might after all turn to wormwood on his lips. This time things should take their chance. The business of life remained to him, and he would follow ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... want diamonds and jewellery, nor a gold-headed cane, when it's got to be used as a crutch. No, sir. What you want is suthin' that won't run away from you; that is always there before you and won't wear out, and will last after you're gone. That's land! And if it wasn't that I have sworn never to sell or give away this house and that garden, if it wasn't that I've held out agin the old woman and Mamie on that point, you should have THIS house and THAT garden. But, mebbee, for the same reason that ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte

... undress, but sleeps with all her clothes on, even her mittens. In her socks she wears, next to the skin, the horny soles cut from the feet of a porcupine, in order that for the rest of her life her shoes may never wear out. Round her waist she wears a cord to which are tied the heads of femurs of a porcupine; because of all animals known to the Tinneh the porcupine suffers least in parturition, it simply drops its young and continues ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... clothing. "If you will beat me," thought I, "you shall do so over my clothes." After many threats, which made no impression on me, he rushed at me with something of the savage fierceness of a wolf, tore off the few and thinly worn clothes I had on, and proceeded to wear out, on my back, the heavy goads which he had cut from the gum tree. This flogging was the first of a series of floggings; and though very severe, it was less so than many which came after it, and these, for offenses far ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... Without streets and vehicles, the uproar of wheels, the brutality of horses, and with its little winding ways where people crowd together, where voices sound as in the corridors of a house, where the human step circulates as if it skirted the angles of furniture and shoes never wear out, the place has the character of an immense collective apartment, in which Piazza San Marco is the most ornamented corner and palaces and churches, for the rest, play the part of great divans of repose, tables of entertainment, expanses ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James

... to work as steadily as he had done during the two previous nights. Hunger and pain and toil were doing their best to wear out his strength. His limbs moved laggardly. Once he fell asleep in the midst of his labor. He dreamed of Moya, and after he awakened—as he presently did with a start—she seemed so near that it would scarce have surprised him if in the ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... add something more to her illness; and won't it be dreadful! The clothes may be no matter how fine, but what is their worth, after all? The health of our child is what is important to look to! and were she even to wear out a suit of new clothes a-day, what would that too amount to? I was about to tell you that a short while back, Feng Tzu-ying came to see me, and, perceiving that I had somewhat of a worried look, he asked me what was up; and I told him that our son's ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... a dull undertone. San Francisco had been very proud of this pavement when it was new. She was very grateful for it even now, for in the upper part of town the mud and dust were still something awful. Unfortunately the planks were beginning to wear out in places; and a city government, trying to give the least possible for its taxes, had ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... shops, too—they were so remote, so contemptuous. When she went into Gerretson's, back home Nellie Monahan was likely to say: "You've certainly had a lot of wear out of that blue, Mrs. Brewster. Let's see, you've had it two—three years this spring? My land! Let me show you our ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... personal talk, About Friends, who live within an easy walk, Or Neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight: And, for my chance-acquaintance, Ladies bright, Sons, Mothers, Maidens withering on the stalk, These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night. Better than such discourse doth silence long, Long, barren silence, square with my desire; 10 To sit without emotion, hope, or aim, By my half-kitchen my half-parlour fire, And listen to the flapping ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... relief is possible; Edwards will have no attempt to explain away the eternity of which he speaks; there will be no end to the 'exquisite horrible misery' of the damned. You, when damned, 'will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this Almighty merciless vengeance: and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains.' Nor might his ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... was too much for me to allow him to wear out his eyes reading to me; much as I should enjoy it, I could not hear of it, but I would ask him to let me have the volume when he had finished with it. It did seem that this should bring Mary into the light again, and ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... learned to weave the small mats, further practice can be had by weaving long slats into a warp of cord on the loom. It is better to conquer the mystery of "over and under" in this way than to undo the work and wear out the material ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd

... This is one of the most serious depressants a heart has to combat; acute pain must not be allowed, and prolonged subacute pain must be stopped. Even peripheral troublesome irritations must be removed, as tending to wear out a heart which has all of ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... immediately succeeded, and in the time of Charles II. they still enjoyed greater popularity: the progress of time, however, has restored all three to their due places. As on the stage the highest excellence will wear out by frequent repetition, and novelty always possesses a great charm, the dramatic art is, consequently, much influenced by fashion; it is more than other branches of literature and the fine arts exposed to the danger of passing rapidly from a grand ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... which had power to make one wise. It was a tree of knowledge, one whose fruit would intoxicate and revitalize,—speeding up the action of life, causing one to think rapidly, and to see with a clearer vision. Setting the vitalities in a key where they must wear out, bringing forth the order of death. This tree was called the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because its power was the division between man and sin. He could eat of the tree of life and realize the power and nature of life in all its glory. But he could not realize ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen

... lines that the British observing officers were frequently unable to spot their own bursts. A field-battery of eighteen-pounders firing at this rate will blaze away anywhere from twelve to twenty tons of ammunition a day. As guns firing with such rapidity wear out their tubes and their springs in a few days, it is necessary to rush entire batteries to the repair-shops at the rear. And that provides another burden for ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... right over to your sample room whether you ask me to or not and give you an order. This is the best time for me to buy goods. All these other fellows around here are croaking about the election and they're not going to have anything to sell these people. Shoes are going to wear out and the sun is going to fade calico, Bryan or no Bryan! I want some goods on my shelves. Come on, let's go now before it ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson

... position induces hypostatic congestion of the lungs, or, owing to the difficulties of nursing, bed-sores may form and death result from absorption of toxins. Frequently the prolonged confinement to bed, the continuous pain, and the natural impairment of appetite wear out the strength. In many cases the patient becomes peevish, irritable, or ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... Indies and vice versa, instead of fighting against the forces of nature as some old seamen of the past used to do, now make both winds and tides run harmoniously in their favour by meeting them half-way, so to speak. Captain Miles, in our instance, therefore, did not wear out his crew by trying to beat to windward in order to get to the open Atlantic immediately. On the contrary, he kept his vessel well away to leeward, shaping a course for Saint Christopher's, so as to pass afterwards through the Anegada Channel, ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... the worst of civilization. It either produces discontented savages like myself or goes too far and turns the whole body into brain. I have managed to get a sort of steam-engine into my head which gives me little rest and would wear out my body if I didn't happen to have the constitution of a buffalo. But I doubt if I shall be what North is, sixteen years hence. That man is the best example of equilibrium I have ever seen. His mental activity is enormous, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... and the Antichrist is persecuting these Saints and they pass through this awful time of trouble. Daniel wrote, "I beheld, and the same horn made war with the Saints and prevailed against them ... and he (the little horn) shall speak great words against the Most High and shall wear out the Saints of the Most High" (Daniel vii:21, 25). These suffering tribulation Saints will receive the Kingdom on earth (Dan. vii:22, 27). In the great vision of John in Revelation chapter xiii, the same beast which Daniel saw is ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein

... the mother, rising with unusual strength, "refuse such a slavish offer. Let him not, in order to enrich himself, by degrees take your life. Death's arrows have now near reached you. Do not thus wear out ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... processes of life below diaphragm? In short, are we not in a condition to soon be in a complete state of stagnation? As soon as the arteries have filled the venous system, which is without sensation to return blood to the heart, then the heart can do nothing but wear out its energies trying to drive blood into a dead being below the diaphragm known as the venous system. It is dead until sensation reaches the vein from the sacral and ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... require a much more extensive market than the most important parts of the rude produce of the land. A single shoemaker will make more than 300 pairs of shoes in the year; and his own family will not, perhaps, wear out six pairs. Unless, therefore, he has the custom of, at least, 50 such families as his own, he cannot dispose of the whole product of his own labour. The most numerous class of artificers will seldom, in a large country, make more than ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... you may add another, to wit, the glory of the next world will never wear out; but these are suddenly gone. Therefore Passion had not so much reason to laugh at Patience, because he had his good things first, as Patience will have to laugh at Passion, because he had his best things ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... no good for rough roads. He would wear out a car in no time, to say nothing of the passengers. Can't think why we haven't had a puncture before now!" said Jack gloomily; whereupon Margaret called him sharply ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... wrestle and play longer and harder than the young of any other primate species known to me. It is important to cage together only young apes of equal size and strength, for if there is any marked disparity in size, the larger and stronger animal will wear out the strength of its smaller ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... cards, and another sum of money had not come. Dick's funds were almost absolutely worn out. But that was only a reason the more for parting with him. He did not care to have to deal with a man who had to wear out his old clothes in his house because he had not credit with his tailor to get a new coat and trousers. He thought that he would part with Dick; but he had not quite made up his mind when he sat down to write ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... them in want and woe those whom their labor had supported. It is honorable to the Profession that it has organized an Association a for the relief of its suffering members and their families; it owes this tribute to the ill-rewarded industry and sacrifices of its less fortunate brothers who wear out health and life in the service of humanity. I have great pleasure in referring to this excellent movement, which gives our liberal profession a chance to show its liberality, and serves to unite us all, the successful and those whom fortune has cast down, in the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... patience and of temper, have they not cost the unlucky Roystonians who were destined to walk upon {114} them for so long and with so little hope of change? It was a cheap way of serving posterity, but assuredly not a kind one, for the evil of it is that they never wear out! Farmers and others paid their highway rates in kind, that is by carting materials, &c., and of this "composition" according to scale, there were seven farmers in Royston availing themselves. The first piece of stone ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... isn't old, not for a man like you; and it shouldn't be lonely, that age. I'm still older, and I propose to wear out ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... for that, I'll wear out my pattens in time, no doubt. I'd no thought there was any such haste to wear out good pattens all at once." She spake softly and gently, but with half-closed eyes, the same sly Oline as ever. "And as for Inger," said she, "the changeling, as we ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... wealth. In early years he divided his time into alternate periods during which he either studied hard in civil and canonical law, or was a constant attendant upon the race-course, or rushed aimlessly all over Europe without any object except to wear out the post-horses which he used in relays over hundreds of miles of road. His life, indeed, was eccentric almost to insanity; but when he had met the beautiful and lonely Countess of Albany there came over him a striking change. She influenced him for all that was good, ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall arise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into His hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer

... prices strangely risen. Disdain to own the least regret For all the Christian blood w' have let; 'Twill save our credit, and maintain 985 Our title to do so again; That needs not cost one dram of sense, But pertinacious impudence. Our constancy t' our principles, In time will wear out all things else; 990 Like marble statues rubb'd in pieces With gallantry of pilgrims' kisses; While those who turn and wind their oaths, Have swell'd and sunk, like other froths; Prevail'd a while, but 'twas not long ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... will have to put a label on your back, 'Second-hand!' or her velvet will be a scandal. I can't wear out that at home like this flagrant, flowery thing, that I saw Miss Curtis looking at as rather a disreputable article. There's preferment for you, Ailie! What do you think of a general's widow with six boys? She is come after you. We had ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... vile traffic, at four hundred dollars each per annum; and the gazettes of the Capital have their columns polluted with the advertisements of these men, offering cash for children and youth, who, torn from their parents and families, are to wear out their existence on the plantations of the south.[A] For the safe keeping of these children and youth, till they are shipped for the Mississippi, private pens and prisons are provided, and the UNITED STATES' JAIL used when required. The laws of the District in relation to slaves and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... I have traveled over I never forget. This ride, in the middle of October, when all the colors of autumn vied with the sunlight to make the forest a region of golden enchantment, was one of particular delight to me. I had begun to work and wear out the pain in my back. Every night I had suffered a little less and slept a little better, and every morning I had less and less of a struggle to get up and straighten out. Many a groan had I smothered. But now, when I got warmed up from riding or walking or sawing wood, the pain ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... Ruthven," she said one day after one of her little outbreaks, "I wish I were like you. You are so sweetly good and so perfectly self-controlled. Even I cannot wear out your patience. You must have been born ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... kindly. "But I will arrange to stick around until the job is so well under way that you won't need me. I am quite as interested in making the scheme a success as you are. All is you mustn't let me wear out my welcome and be a burden ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... ringing in her ears, and soon she thought how her father and mother had to practise close economy, and she decided: "I ought not to wear out my shoes by sliding, when shoes cost so much," and she did not slide any more. There was no more ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... unworthy to be thrown away upon those Intrigues and Adventures, to which the romantic taste has confined Modern Tragedy: and, after the example of his predecessors in Greece, would have employed the Drama to wear out of our minds everything that is mean or little, to cherish and cultivate that Humanity which is the ornament of our nature, to soften Insolence, to soothe Affliction, and to subdue our minds to the dispensations of Providence. ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... arrangement for the continued heat of the sun we can see that the warmth of our planets is assured for untold ages. There is no need to fear that the sun will wear out by burning. His brightness will continue for ages beyond the thoughts ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton

... duty as well as privilege to perfect our constitution, and see that it does not wear out too soon, that we are not prematurely called away from our duties. And I bring it as serious charge against modern systems of education, that they tend to degenerate mankind, to impair the constitution and to shorten life. That we should ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various

... I'm a man who feels strongly for his family. Here I entered one boy in the high school; he has to have a uniform, and then something else. And what's to become of the old shack?—Why, how much shoe-leather you wear out simply walking from Butirky ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... body could not stand it. The misery and terror and confusion of his soul would soon wear out his body, and he would die, as I have seen men actually die, when their souls have been left in that deep somewhat too long; shrink together into dark melancholy, and pine away, and die. And I have seen sweet young creatures too, whom God for some purpose of his own (which must ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley

... Romans, who were, generally speaking, low in stature, and yet were eminently strong, owed that advantage to their cultivation of bodily exercise. This kept their limbs supple, and rendered their constitution stout and hardy. Now, very laborious exercises would rather wear out the machine than they would invigorate it, if there was not a due relaxation, which should not, however, be too abrupt a transition from the most fatiguing exercises to a state of absolute rest. ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... good, and things with holes in them whole again? Why, that is half the work of the world, Harriet! It is not his feet that make these holes," continued Miss Anna, nicely, "it is his shoes, his big, coarse shoes. And his clothes wear out so soon. He has a tailor who misfits him so exactly from year to year that there is never the slightest deviation in the botch. I know beforehand exactly where all the creases will begin. So I darn ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... wear out. To keep the range free from rust rub it very frequently with a cloth slightly oiled with any kind of oil or grease, except kerosene or one containing salt; we suggest the use of olive oil or one of its ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler

... retreated to Thessaly, followed by Pompey, who, had he known how to pursue his advantage, might, after this last success—the last he ever had—have defeated Caesar. He had wisely avoided a pitched battle until his troops should become inured to service, or until he should wear out his adversary; but now, puffed up with victory and self-confidence, and unduly influenced by his officers, he concluded to risk a battle. Caesar was encamped on the plain of Pharsalia, and Pompey on a ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... the house, furnish it, pay the maids, and run the whole place. All you have to do is just to wear out your chair in the consulting-room. I'll let you have pocket-money and everything. Then you hand over to me three quarters of what you earn, and you keep the ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... wear out very early in consequence of the conditions under which they live and work. Most of them are unfit for work at forty years, a few hold out to forty-five, almost none to fifty years of age. This is caused not only by the general enfeeblement of ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... had no desire to learn of his welfare or to see him—she did not even give him the chance to see her. And so, placing these facts before him for the first time since he had loved her, he considered what was due to himself. "Was it good enough?" he asked. "Was it just that he should continue to wear out his soul and body for this girl who did not want what he had to give, who treated him less considerately than a man whom she met for the first time at dinner?" He felt he had reached the breaking-point; that the time had come when he must consider what he owed to himself. There could never be any ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... he said, "I am in such great terror of being shot,—I, who am only waiting to shuffle off my corporeal jacket, to slip away into the back stars, and put diameters of the solar system and sidereal orbits between me and all souls,—there to wear out ages in solitude, and forget memory itself, if it be possible?" He had a remorse running to despair of his social gaucheries, and walked miles and miles to get the twitchings out of his face, the starts and shrugs out of his arms and shoulders. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various



Words linked to "Wear out" :   indispose, decay, dilapidate, fray, tucker out, refresh, scuff, overweary, ablate, frazzle, overtire, deteriorate, tucker, wash up, crumble, exhaust, overfatigue, pall, beat



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