weary - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English wery, weri, from Old English wēriġ (“weary”), from Proto-West Germanic *wōrīg, *wōrag (“weary”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian wuurich (“weary, tired”), West Frisian wurch (“tired”), Dutch dialectal wurrig (“exhausted”), Old Saxon wōrig (“weary”), Old High German wōrag, wuarag (“drunken”).

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈwɪə̯ɹi/
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /ˈwiːɹi/
• Hyphenation: wea‧ry
• Rhymes: -ɪəɹi

weary (comparative wearier, superlative weariest)

1. Having the strength exhausted by toil or exertion; tired; fatigued.

   A weary traveller knocked at the door.

   • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:

     I care not for my spirits if my legs were not weary.

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0091:

     There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

   • 2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

     With the lift in the block still out of order, they climbed the flights and flights of steps. When Dad finally put the key in the front door, both were weary beyond words.

2. Having one's patience, relish, or contentment exhausted; tired; sick.

   soldiers weary of marching, or of confinement;  I grew weary of studying and left the library.

3. Expressive of fatigue.

   He gave me a weary smile.

4. Causing weariness; tiresome.
   • 1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 9, page 284:

     She had to dance all night without resting till break of day […] Old women supported her in the weary task, and they all danced together, arm in arm.

• See also Thesaurus:fatigued

weary (third-person singular simple present wearies, present participle wearying, simple past and past participle wearied)

1. To make or to become weary.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:tire

   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers,

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     I would not cease / To wearie him with my assiduous cries.

   • [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:

     Yet there was no time to be lost if I was ever to get out alive, and so I groped with my hands against the side of the grave until I made out the bottom edge of the slab, and then fell to grubbing beneath it with my fingers. But the earth, which the day before had looked light and loamy to the eye, was stiff and hard enough when one came to tackle it with naked hands, and in an hour's time I had done little more than further weary myself and bruise my fingers.

• unwearied
• unwearying
• weariedly

• wary

• Erway, Wreay