wearing away

“She, active and fresh-looking still, but settling into that fair largeness which is not unbecoming a lady of middle-age, he, inclined to a slight stoop, with the lines of his face more sharply defined, and the hair wearing away off his forehead up to the crown.”

John Halifax, Gentleman

“The time is wearing away apace!" growled the Earl of Kent.”

Mary Queen Of Scotland And The Isles

“A girl called Vanda Lane dies: a quiet girl, without friends, without family save for a lunatic mother wearing away her sad life in a half-world of unreality and doubt.”

Tour de Force

“In the same unenclosed monastery, there was a young, beautiful, and noble maiden, who having been caught in the same devil's net, had been for many years wearing away her heart and her time in frivolous light-mindedness with all kinds of persons; and she had become so infatuated in these practices, that she always fled like a wild animal from the Servitor of the Eternal Wisdom, because she feared that he would order her to give up the kind of life which she was leading.”

The Life of Blessed Henry Suso by Himself.