outworn

[ out-wawrn, -wohrn ]

adjective

1. out-of-date, outmoded, or obsolete:

   outworn ideas; outworn methods.

2. worn-out, as clothes.
3. exhausted in strength or endurance, as persons.

verb

1. past participle of outwear.

outworn

/ ˌaʊtˈwɔːn; ˈaʊtwɔːn /

adjective

1. no longer accepted, used, believed, etc; obsolete or outmoded

Other Words From

• unout·worn adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of outworn¹

First recorded in 1555–65; out- + worn

Example Sentences

“I had outworn my usefulness,” Watt said of his decision, adding that others “wouldn’t get off my case” about his insulting coal advisory panel comment.

From Washington Times

“I had outworn my usefulness,” Watt said of his decision, adding that others “wouldn’t get off my case” about his insulting coal advisory panel comment.

From Seattle Times

The rest, alternating with hers, feature her former lovers, starting with the president and parading backward in time to her teen sweetheart: a gallery of outgrown, outworn or outmaneuvered men who have collectively furnished the indomitable Vita with an advanced education in the arts of transactional eroticism and remorseless self-promotion.

From New York Times

Could I remount the river of my years To the first fountain of our smiles and tears I would not trace again its stream of hours Between its outworn banks of withered flowers.

From Salon

That “hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn,” as science fiction author Wilson Tucker memorably put it when he coined the term in 1941.

From Washington Post

Related Words

• ancient
• antique
• archaic
• corny
• dated
• odd
• old
• old-time
• outdated
• outmoded
• primitive