wear out

wear out idiom
  1. Become or cause to become unusable through long or heavy use, as in She wears out her shoes in no time, or The coupling in this device has worn out. [Early 1400s]
  2. Exhaust, tire, as in I was worn out from packing all those books. Also see tired out. [First half of 1500s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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