Choose the Right Synonym for weary

Verb

tire, weary, fatigue, exhaust, jade mean to make or become unable or unwilling to continue. tire implies a draining of one's strength or patience. the long ride tired us out weary stresses tiring until one is unable to endure more of the same thing. wearied of the constant arguing fatigue suggests great lassitude from excessive strain or undue effort. fatigued by the day's chores exhaust implies complete draining of strength by hard exertion. shoveling snow exhausted him jade suggests the loss of all freshness and eagerness. appetites jaded by overindulgence

Sick and Tired: The Literal and Figurative Meanings of Lassitude

Lassitude and weariness make an interesting pair. As with many nearly synonymous pairs of words in English, one is derived from Latin and the other from Old English. Even though they both mean “the condition of being tired,” they are used in different ways. Following a common pattern, the Latinate word tends to be used in technical, medical, and formal writing, and the Old English-derived word is used when referring to physical, emotional, and spiritual qualities.

Lassitude comes from the Latin word lassus, meaning “weary.” Our English spelling comes from the French word that developed directly from Latin, borrowed in the 15th century. In French, the word las (masculine) or lasse (feminine) means “weary” or “tired,” and the idiom être las de means “to be sick and tired of.” This led to another English word with the same root: alas, a word that expresses sadness or disappointment, but conveys some measure of fatigue and resignation as well.

Though it sometimes is just a fancy word for fatigue in medical contexts, lassitude is also used in ways that are metaphorical and closer in meaning to “negligence”:

Congress was being choked by pettiness and lassitude.

The case was delayed because of sheer lassitude.

The failure was the result of moral lassitude.

Examples of weary in a Sentence

Adjective I would remember the potential for return, all things circling as they do, into something like fullness, small moments of completion that weave together, like Penelope's cloth, doing and undoing themselves by turns, an unfinished pattern that guides a weary traveler home … — Paul Sorrell, Parabola, May 2000 But for the wilted weeds that managed to jut forth in wiry clumps where the mortar was cracked and washed away, the viaduct wall was barren of everything except the affirmation of a weary industrial city's prolonged and triumphant struggle to monumentalize its ugliness. — Philip Roth, American Pastoral, 1997 Every day for a week Ellsworth showed up to see Clarence and every day Miss Eunice and Mr. George Edward would exchange weary glances and shrugs … — Randall Kenan, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, 1992 I need to rest my weary eyes. The miners were weary after a long shift. She was weary from years of housework. Verb What wearies me about Dickens, however, is his excessive use of words. — Will Manley, Booklist, 1 Nov. 2006 I doubted what Indonesia now had to offer and wearied of being new all over again. — Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father, (1995) 2004 Does it weary me to find some women of the next generation reinventing the wheel when it comes to planning their lives and dreaming of their romantic futures? — Margo Jefferson, New York Times Book Review, 15 Apr. 2001 The work wearies me sometimes. these constant complaints are really wearying me See More

Recent Examples on the Web: Adjective Carmakers have been weary over the years about playing second fiddle to tech companies, and often reports suggested Apple demanded to pocket the lion’s share of the profit. — Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 4 May 2022 The fish broth is thin, a little weary, but stretched out with white wine. — New York Times, 2 May 2022 Voters are weary, and the politicians challenging D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) are seeing the growing public concern over crime as a way to make inroads into her lead in the polls. — Washington Post, 23 Apr. 2022 Having defended Labor’s carbon-pricing policies against angry crowds the last time his party was in power, Albanese—weary of another fight—studiously avoided the topic as leader and on the campaign trail. — Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 27 May 2022 Those who dwell … among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. — Anelise Chen, The Atlantic, 17 May 2022 The figures for February showed a shift in spending toward bars and restaurants and hotels, as Americans weary of being cooped up socialized and travelled more. — John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 28 Apr. 2022 In successive legislative sessions, Black lawmakers have grown increasingly weary of serving as political tackling dummies, run over repeatedly by an increasingly dismissive majority. — al, 5 Apr. 2022 Not long before the pandemic began, a human resources manager for an Alaska cargo airline grew weary of a life with constant corporate pressure. — Alex Demarban, Anchorage Daily News, 5 Feb. 2022 Recent Examples on the Web: Verb Yet the movie’s rare skirmishes feel authentically battle-wearied and handicapped by conscience. — Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times, 23 Apr. 2020 How would 6% be for a start Several pages of this is charming; forty years’ worth would have been wearying. — Sheila Heti, The New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2020 Unique pressures If the occasional flight is wearying, imagine the exhaustion of doing it for a living. — Natasha Frost, Quartz, 27 Feb. 2020 Freedom from responsibility, after all, is the fantasy of a world-wearied adult, not of a teenager, who longs for nothing more than to be trusted to make decisions for herself. — Ruth Franklin, The New York Review of Books, 25 Feb. 2020 While an understandable choice, the approach becomes wearying: A few more notes of sincerity would have better served the play. — Celia Wren, Washington Post, 11 Nov. 2019 Following that important thread through the next two hours was wearying, particularly once it was subsumed under questions about bathrooms. — Melissa Gira Grant, The New Republic, 13 Jan. 2020 Others face eviction threats from landlords who have wearied of the police showing up. — Anne Deprince, The Conversation, 1 Nov. 2019 Chekhov, whose plays hardly seem to coerce life at all, boldly broke ranks with this wearying regimentation. — The New York Review of Books, 23 May 2019 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'weary.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.