wearing
UK/ˈwɛəɹɪŋ/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
British/ˈwɛːɹɪŋ/
wearing adjective: intended to be worn. Also the present participle and gerund of wear.
Adjective
wearing (comparative more wearing, superlative most wearing)
- Intended to be worn.
- Clothes used to be called wearing apparel.
- Causing tiredness; trying to a person's patience.
- [The biography] also displays a rather wearing fidelity to chronology that gives rise to too many summer holidays at the beginning of the book and too many royalty statements towards the end.2014 August 17, Jonathan Beckman, “Chasing Lost Time: the Life of C K Scott Moncrieff, Soldier, Spy and Translator by Jean Findlay, review”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)
- Synonyms:
- draining, tiresome, exhausting, exhaustive, fatiguing, grueling, tiring, weariful, wearisome, weary
- Causing erosion.
- That wears (deteriorate through use), and may eventually wear out.
- Comparison of the four bogie designs shows that the Rugby-built A.E.I. bogie has the least number of components and a minimum of metallic wearing surfaces.1960 December, “The first hundred 25 kV a.c. electric locomotives for B.R.”, in Trains Illustrated, page 727
Noun
wearing (plural wearings)
- The mechanical process of eroding or grinding.
- The act by which something is worn.
- formal crown-wearings
- That which is worn; clothes; garments.
- Give me my nightly wearing and adieu.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
Proper noun capitalized: Wearing
Wearing (plural Wearings)
- A surname.
Also used as
wearing is also the present participle and gerund of wear.
Examples of wearing in a sentence
- Penny was wearing a miniskirt, so she skinned her exposed knees when she fell.
- The man wearing a red coat is standing on the street.
- This morning a bloke stood next to me wearing nothing but sandals.
Synonyms of wearing
Forms of wearing
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more wearing |
| superlative | most wearing |
| Noun | |
| plural | wearings |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Wearings |
Origin of wearing
Variant of Waring.
Words formed from wearing
Phrases with wearing
- wearing in
- wearing on
- wearing up
- wearing off
- wearing out
- wearing away
- wearing down
- wearing thin
- wearing horns
- wearing through
- wearing many hats
- wearing the pants
11 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with wearing
Questions about wearing
- What does wearing mean?
- Wearing means intended to be worn.
- What part of speech is wearing?
- Wearing can be an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce wearing?
- Wearing is pronounced /ˈwɛəɹɪŋ/ (UK).
Words near wearing in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wearing (page history and authors); Wearing (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-wearing.ogg.
Cite this entry: “wearing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wearing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.