Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
a. 1 showing signs of wear because of extensive use 2 (context by extension English) trite or hackneyed; repeated too often
WordNet
adj. showing signs of much wear or use
repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse; "bromidic sermons"; "his remarks were trite and commonplace"; "hackneyed phrases"; "a stock answer"; "repeating threadbare jokes"; "parroting some timeworn axiom"; "the trite metaphor `hard as nails'" [syn: banal, commonplace, hackneyed, old-hat, shopworn, stock(a), threadbare, timeworn, tired, trite]
Usage examples of "well-worn".
Ballintubber, but they felt different: lighter, airier, with the trees spaced farther apart and well-worn paths meandering among them.
Hamid-Jones picked up a well-worn flatscreen from a pile on the coffee table and thumbed through a number of droning documentaries about various public works projects on the planets and moons of the Alif system until he found a museum tour of Centauran art treasures.
Winding picturesquely among the trees, well-worn trails led to the Goat-House, to the western slope where Williams lived, to the Aute Valley where the principal gardens of the cloth-plant had been laid out, to the yam and sweet-potato patches and plantain walks, to the rock cisterns Christian had insisted on building in case of drought, to the Rope, and to the saw pit, still used occasionally when someone was in need of plank.
Earl of Hendon was in a big overstuffed armchair beside his library fire, a well-worn, leather-covered volume of Cicero lying open on his lap, when Sebastian walked in, the black loo-mask dangling from one finger.
I notice an elderly Hispano usher with an aristocratic face dressed in an expensive but well-worn suit.
He ushered them into a miserable room with faded wallpaper, a damp ceiling, and a settee covered in well-worn, brown leathercloth that creaked and exhaled a strange musty odor when they sat on it.
It was necessary for them to persuade their burghers that the game was really up, and that they had no choice but to throw down their well-worn rifles and their ill-filled bandoliers.
He was totally unfamiliar to her, dressed casu all in well-worn and very faded blue jeans, and a short sleeved shirt that acknowledged the heat of the glo nous summer they had been enjoying.
A well-worn path took them along a branching tube, past two shafts that plunged into darkness, three stone pillars with rubble heaped to one side, and four branches forking off the main corridor whose ceilings curved so low he could never have hoped to squeeze through them.
His clothing was that of a down-at-heels merchant, dirty tunic and bulging-pocketed overtunic over patched and well-worn breeches and good but worn boots.
I realized I was on the way to being the best painter in the world, I knew from that moment on that I should not do what everyone else said, I should not take the well-worn path to Italy where all the painters go to learn from the supposed glories hanging on Italian walls.
Then may it be rather the well-worn joke Thou repeatest, to stop conflagration, and write Penance for rhetoric.
A man pushed out of the throng and pointed straight at Roddy, who, not recognizing the man, instinctively dropped his hand to Bleeder, his well-worn axe.
And where Jahna wore close-fitting clothes of stitched leather and plant fiber, with straw-stuffed moccasins, a fur-lined hood and woven cap, the bonehead cow wore simple wraps of filthy, well-worn leather, tied on with bits of sinew.
Reichsherzog advanced a single pace, raised his bared blade, and slapped the two shoulders of Foster's well-worn buffcoat with the flat of the steel.