Weathered means worn and roughened by years outdoors. Weathered stone, a weathered face, weathered timber.
It is usually admiring rather than critical — weathered says the thing has lasted and shows it, where worn-out says it has failed. In geology weathering is the breaking down of rock in place, as against erosion, which carries the pieces away. Note weather beneath it.
1adjectiveweatheredWorn and roughened by years outdoors.
“The weathered wooden bench by the sea had turned silver-grey.”
weathered is a quality of surface.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂weh₁-
Proto-Indo-European
*wedʰrom
Proto-Germanic
*wedrą
Proto-West Germanic
*wedr
Old English
weder
Middle English
weder
English
weather
English, today
weathered
Built from
weather comes from Middle English weder, wedir, from Old English weder, from Proto-West Germanic wedr, from Proto-Germanic wedrą, from Proto-Indo-European wedʰrom (=we-dʰrom), from h₂weh₁- (“to blow”). 2 Cognate with Scots wather (“weather”), stq Weeder (“weather”), cim bèttar (“weather”), Dutch weder, weer (“weather”), German Wetter (“weather”), Low German Weder (“weather”), lb Wieder (“weather”), Yiddish וועטער (“weather”), Danish vejr (“weather”), Faroese -, Icelandic veður (“weather”), Norwegian Bokmål vær (“weather”), Norwegian Nynorsk veder, vêr (“weather”), Swedish väder (“weather”); also more distantly related to Russian вёдро (“fair weather”) and perhaps Albanian vrëndë (“light rain”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA