wear away

present singular third person wears away · participle present wearing away · past wore away · participle past worn away

1. To erode gradually and progressively.

   As the sensitiveness which greeted my new position wore away, I began to rather like the freedom of my new character.

   1861, E. J. Guerin, Mountain Charley, page 17

   1 more example

   I stopped taking the sweets and condiments I had got from home. The mind having taken a different turn, the fondness for condiments wore away, and I now relished the boiled spinach which in Richmond tasted insipid, cooked without condiments. Many such experiments taught me that the real seat of taste was not the tongue but the mind.

   1925-29, Mahadev Desai (translator), M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Part I, chapter xvii

   Synonyms: fret, abrade