weary

comparative wearier · superlative weariest

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

   A weary traveller knocked at the door.

   4 more examples

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

   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] am weary, thinking of your task.

   1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Weariness

   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.

   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

   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.

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

   Synonyms: drained, bleareyed, bleary, bleary-eyed, bone-tired, bushed, tired out, spent

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.

   1 more example

   [Henry Chang:] Could I persuade you to accept my hospitality until such time as you should grow weary of me? [Shangai Lily:] I'm weary of you now.

   1932, Jules Furthman, Shanghai Express

   Synonyms: fed up, sick to the back teeth, annoyed, angry, aggravated, agitated, bothered, exasperated

3. Expressive of fatigue.

   He gave me a weary smile.

   Synonyms: drawn, haggard, careworn, haggard, drawn, woeworn

4. Causing weariness; tiresome.

   There passed a weary time.

   1797–1798 (date written), [Samuel Taylor Coleridge], “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere”, in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, London: […] J[ohn] & A[rthur] Arch, […], published 1798, →OCLC

   2 more examples

   And now she was vppon the weary way,

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 39

   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.

   1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 9, page 284

   Synonyms: drudgerous, tedious, draining, exhausting, exhaustive, fatiguing, grueling, tiresome

present singular third person wearies · participle present wearying · participle past wearied · past wearied

1. ambitransitiveTo make or to become weary.

   So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers,

   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]

   4 more examples

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

   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

   His name was Henderland; he spoke with the broad south-country tongue, which I was beginning to weary for the sound of; and besides common countryship, we soon found we had a more particular bond of interest.

   1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC

   Next morning, as I stood motionless and with heavy eyes at the helm—for I had not slept well—I began to weary anxiously for daylight, and peered towards the horizon, where I thought I observed something like a black cloud against the dark sky.

   1858, R M Ballantyne, The Coral Island

   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.

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

   Synonyms: beleaguer, exhaust, fatigue, fordo, do for, gas out, get down, jade

plural Wearys

1. A surname.

   One shot was for the scouts. The next one was for the antitank gunner, whose name was Roland Weary.

   1969, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., chapter 2 (pages 19–42), in Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death, Vintage edition (1991 paperback), London: Vintage Books, published 2000, →ISBN, page 27