Etymology

wear and tear

Today it means: Physical damage caused to an object due to ordinary use over time; specifically (accounting, law), as justifying a write-down of the object's value in a set of accounts, or exclusion of compensation for the object under a warranty of quality. Full definition →

Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

The noun is derived from wear (“damage caused by use over time”, noun) + and + tear (“damage caused by tearing”, noun). The verb is derived from wear (“to cause gradual deterioration in”, verb) + and + tear (“to rend by pulling apart”, verb), modelled on the noun.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.