How to Use wear away in a Sentence

wear away

phrasal verb
  • Each grain of sand just wears away with her sense of self.
    Yvonne Villarreal, Los Angeles Times, 2 June 2023
  • Jamieson tells us that the print on a doormat usually fades, or wears away, first.
    Lee Alisha Williams, Southern Living, 6 July 2023
  • Jamieson tells us that the print on a doormat usually fades, or wears away, first.
    Lee Alisha Williams, Southern Living, 15 Mar. 2024
  • Straight, white artists are still eating up most of the bandwidth, but some of the barriers to entry are wearing away.
    Joseph Hudak, Rolling Stone, 28 June 2023
  • Earthquakes, erosion and vandalism wore away at them over the centuries.
    Julia Halperin, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2024
  • An analogy sometimes given is that the nervous system is like the wiring of a lamp, and the myelin like the wiring’s protective sheath; when that sheath wears away, so much can go wrong.
    Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, 17 July 2023
  • Canyons, islands and mountain ranges formed and wore away before even our earliest ancestors were around to see them.
    Corinne Purtill, Los Angeles Times, 14 Sep. 2023
  • The new paint probably didn’t stick well to those areas because older paint there was already peeling, or paint there had worn away and left weathered wood as the base for new paint.
    Jeanne Huber, Washington Post, 12 Jan. 2024
  • The top of a three-light-year tall pillar of cool hydrogen is being worn away by the radiation of nearby stars, while stars within the pillar unleash jets of gas that stream from the peaks.
    Sheril Kirshenbaum, Discover Magazine, 25 Aug. 2010
  • The tool comes pre-sharpened, and the epoxy powder coating is designed to wear away around the edges first so the sharpened edge will continuously be revealed and grow sharper as it is used.
    Renee Freemon Mulvihill, Better Homes & Gardens, 17 May 2023
  • Your mouth can’t handle the chemical as well as your GI tract can: Bromelain breaks down proteins that are part of the mucus lining on your cheek, which wears away at the protective barrier.
    Ashia Aubourg, SELF, 15 June 2023
  • In some of the trucks, a wiring harness can rub against the rear axle housing, gradually wearing away insulating material on the wires.
    Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN, 31 July 2023
  • These minor glitches may have worn away our capacity to focus.
    Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 25 Mar. 2024
  • Now, running constantly, the bronze rollers gradually wear away.
    Dorothy Wickenden, The New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2023
  • Saliva is a skin irritant, Kapoor noted, because the enzymes inside saliva that break down food also wear away the moisture barrier.
    Jocelyn Solis-Moreira, CNN, 7 Apr. 2024
  • Other complications can affect the lungs, throat, or mouth, and include asthma, the wearing away of tooth enamel, and laryngitis, which causes inflammation of the voice box.
    Maggie O'Neill, Health, 16 Nov. 2023
  • Peptic ulcer disease, a wearing away of the stomach lining, can be asymptomatic in some cases, but others are severe enough to make a patient double over in pain, two doctors told NBC News.
    David K. Li, NBC News, 7 Sep. 2023
  • Mechanical keyboards from newcomers or with cheaper prices often settle for ABS plastic with legends that could eventually wear away.
    Scharon Harding, Ars Technica, 31 July 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'wear away.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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