Meaning of wear thin | Babel Free

Definitions

To lessen or weaken over time, as from overuse.

idiomatic, informal

Equivalents

Examples

“Your jocose wisecracks have already worn thin.”

“Women and gay people, for example, can start to live more freely with the breakdown of patriarchal and heterosexist institutions, while workers and people of color are able to challenge the economics of poverty and the ideology of racism as the rationales behind those notions continue to wear ever thinner.”

“Continuing his recent stern rhetoric, Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg told reporters in Stockholm that many have worked hard to help Latvia deal with its severe economic recession but that patience is wearing thin.”

“[T]he ‘fun’ factor may be in part attributable the novelty of the feedback mechanism, and the sense of fun might wear thin after longer exposure to the feedback method.”

CEFR level