Threadbare means so worn that the cloth has gone thin. A threadbare coat, threadbare carpet, threadbare and patched.
The word is literal: the pile or nap has worn away and the threads of the weave are bare. Figuratively, a threadbare excuse is one used so often it has worn through — which is the same image and a very old one. Note that the compound is thread plus bare.
1adjectivethreadbareSo worn that the cloth has gone thin.
“He wore a threadbare jumper with holes at both elbows.”
threadbare is a quality of wear.
Middle English thredbare is thread plus bare, from cloth worn until the threads show.
Proto-Indo-European
*terh₁- — to drill, pierce; to rub; to turn, twist
Proto-Germanic
*þrēduz — thread; twisted fibre
Old English
þrǣd — thread
Middle English
thred-bar
English, today
threadbare
Built from
From Middle English thred-bar, thred-bare (“of cloth, clothing, etc.: worn to such an extent that the warp and weft threads show, shabby, worn-out; (figurative) inadequate, poor”)threadbare, thread-bare, from thred (“piece of textile twine”) (from Old English þrǣd (“thread”), from Proto-Germanic þrēduz (“thread; twisted fibre”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European terh₁- (“to drill, pierce; to rub; to turn, twist”)) + bar, bare (“naked, unclothed, bare; not covered”) (from Old English bær (“naked, bare; unconcealed”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic bazaz (“naked, bare”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰosós (“bare; barefoot”)). The English word is analysable as thread + bare.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Clothes & Fashion