Other forms: wearing, worn, wore, wears
To wear something is to have it on your body — clothes, shoes, a watch, glasses, perfume, a expression. It is irregular and the forms have to be learned: wear, wore, worn.
Two things trip learners up. First, wear is a state, not an action: you wear a coat all day, and the act of getting it on is put on. She was wearing a red coat describes a whole afternoon; she put on a red coat describes ten seconds. Second, the same verb means to damage by use — steps worn by feet, a jumper worn at the elbow — and from that come wear out, wear off and wear down, three phrasal verbs that share the picture of something gradually going away.
1verbwearTo have clothes or other things on your body.~74%
“He wears the same jacket every day.”
synonyms: have on, dress in
2verbgraduallyTo damage something gradually by using it.~8%
“The steps are worn smooth in the middle.”
3nouncausedThe damage caused by long use.~16%
“The carpet is showing wear by the door.”
4verbparticularTo have a particular expression on your face.~2%
“She wore the look of somebody who had heard it before.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 18 sentences found in the wild and placed 12 of them on a sense (6 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
wear is a way of using clothes.
Old English werian meant to clothe or cover, and behind it is a Proto-Indo-European root *wes-, to dress. The same root gives Latin vestis, a garment, and so English vest, vestment and invest — which originally meant to dress somebody in the robes of an office.
Middle English
weren
English, today
wear
From Middle English weren. Middle English weren, werien, from Old English werian (“to clothe, cover over; put on, wear, use; stock (land)”), from Proto-West Germanic waʀjan, from Proto-Germanic wazjaną (“to clothe”), from Proto-Indo-European wes- (“to dress, put on (clothes)”). Cognate to Sanskrit वस्ते, Ancient Greek ἕννυμι (“put on”), Latin vestis (“garment”) (English vest), Albanian vesh (“dress up, wear”), txb wäs-, xcl զգենում, Welsh gwisgo, hit 𒉿𒀸-.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA