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Definition of "wear and tear" []

  • Loss, damage, or depreciation resulting from ordinary use and exposure. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "wear and tear" in a sentence
  • "The weathered face, brown-browed and strongly boned, and deeply furrowed now by the wear and tear of sixty-five years, gazing back at him from wide-set and wide open eyes of a dark, autumnal brown, let him in honestly to the mind within."
  • "The Andromatic robot aroused itself from the semidormant state it assumed to recharge its batteries and repair any minor wear and tear its mechanical components had sustained during its last active period."
  • "Gathered out of the confusion of nature, built up of fragments of the old Devonian rock and shale, laid with due regard to the wear and tear of time, well-bottomed and well-capped, establishing boundaries and defining possessions, etc., these lines of stone wall afford a good lesson in many things besides wall building."