Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • past participle Worn out or subdued by toil; worn out so as to be trite.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective worn out

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

over- +‎ worn

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Examples

  • We can supercharge our talk with n|om, and allow it to spring forth as a different kind of arrow that disrupts and disengages overworn habits of thinking.

    The Bushman Way of Tracking God PhD Bradford Keeney 2010

  • Her place was unkempt, smelled of overworn laundry and rotting dill.

    Aching Hours 2010

  • Daniel Kasman on Lights in the Dusk: "The strong emphasis on [Aki] Kaurismäki's staging places the plot at such a distance that the story and acting seem banal and overworn while the look is utterly refined."

    GreenCine Daily: Fests and events, 2/26. 2007

  • I would like to reiterate my argument that the “Wasteland” cliche is a bit overworn in science fiction.

    Cheeseburger Gothic » Post WW ecology. North America. 2009

  • Just after his days of wanting to be Huck Finn, complete with overworn overalls and a corncob pipe made for him by my grandfather, and just before his days as a break dancer, my brother, who celebrated his 31st birthday yesterday, was obsessed with The Outsiders.

    So Many Links, So Little Time 2004

  • I'm actually suggesting that they are (largely) incapable of thinking outside the box (to use a well-overworn phrase).

    Coding Dispositions at GDC 2006

  • Just after his days of wanting to be Huck Finn, complete with overworn overalls and a corncob pipe made for him by my grandfather, and just before his days as a break dancer, my brother, who celebrated his 31st birthday yesterday, was obsessed with The Outsiders.

    September 2004 2004

  • How many overworn quotations from Shakespeare suddenly leap into meaning and brightness when they are seen in their context!

    Robert Louis Stevenson 2004

  • Ans. This is that which is repeated “usque ad nauseam;” and were it not for variety of expressions, wherewith some men do abound, to adorn it, it would appear extremely beggarly and overworn.

    The Doctrine of the Saints��� Perseverance Explained and Confirmed 1616-1683 1966

  • He was usually in mischief when not asleep, and his overworn mother and somewhat shiftless and careless father were so taken up with the other children and with family and pastoral cares, that "Dodd" grew up by himself, as so many children do; more is the pity.

    The Evolution of Dodd William Hawley Smith

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