worn

English

Alternative forms

• worne (obsolete)

Etymology

By analogy to past participles like torn from tear and sworn from swear.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /wɔːn/
• (Standard Southern British, Australia, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /woːn/

  • Audio (Australia):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /woɹn/

  • Audio (General American):

    (file)

• (without the horse–hoarse merger)
  • (Scotland) IPA^(key): /woɾn/
  • (Manchester) IPA^(key): /woːn/
  • (Eastern New England) IPA^(key): /woən/
• Homophone: warn (horse–hoarse merger)
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)n
• Hyphenation: worn

Adjective

worn (comparative more worn, superlative most worn)

1. Damaged and shabby as a result of much use.
   • 1857, Herman Melville, chapter XVIII, in The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade:

     Upon this, an unhappy-looking woman, in a sort of mourning, neat, but sadly worn, hid her face behind a meagre bundle, and was heard to sob.

   • 1989 May, John Boslough, “Searching for the Secrets of Gravity”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 567:

     In Pisa, where [Galileo] was born, I climbed the worn steps of the tower that has been leaning southward almost from the day it was built in the 13th century.

2. Worn out; exhausted.
   • 1889, The Wesley Naturalist, volume 2, page 143:

     Preëminently is the Lake District suited for the jaded and worn, who seek in solitude and amidst scenery unmoiled and unsullied by human artifice, refreshment alike of body and spirit.

Translations

damaged and shabby from too much use

• Bulgarian: износен (bg) (iznosen)
• Estonian: väsinud (et)
• Finnish: kulunut (fi)
• Galician: lampo (gl)
• Hungarian: elhasznált (hu), elnyűtt (hu), kopott (hu)
• Italian: logoro (it)
• Latin: trītus
• Māori: nguture, ruha, ruwha, tāwekoweko, waikauere, pūnguru, pūnguru
• Piedmontese: usà
• Portuguese: gastado m, gasto (pt), surrado (pt)
• Spanish: desgastado (es) m, desgastada (es) f
• Swedish: sliten (sv)
• Turkish: aşınmış (tr), yıpranmış, yalama (tr)
• Ukrainian: зно́шений (znóšenyj), поно́шений (ponóšenyj)

Verb

worn

1. past participle of wear

Derived terms

• bodyworn, body-worn
• body-worn camera
• forworn
• nap-worn
• outworn
• shelf-worn
• worn-in
• worn-out, worn out

Anagrams

• Norw., rown

Middle English

Verb

worn

1. alternative form of weren

Old English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /worn/, [worˠn]
• Rhymes: -orn

Noun

worn m

1. great many, multitude
2. crowd, swarm, band, flock
   • 10th century, The Wanderer:

     Sē þonne þisne wealsteal · wīse ġeþōhte
     ond þis deorce līf · dēope ġeondþenċeð,
     frōd in ferðe, · feor oft ġemon
     wælsleahta worn, · ond þās word ācwið:

     Then he deeply thinks over this wall-place
     and this dark life with wise thought,
     shrewd in mind, oft recalls the long bygone
     swarm of slaughters, and utters these words:

Declension

Strong a-stem:

	singular	plural
nominative	worn	wornas
accusative	worn	wornas
genitive	wornes	worna
dative	worne	wornum

References

• Joseph Bosworth; T. Northcote Toller (1898), “worn”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, second edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.