wear down
"wear-down" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“wear down” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To cause (someone) physical or mental fatigue.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | wear down |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “wear down” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for wear down is 9 letters long, classified as a verb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Zero misspellings are on record for wear down in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is wear down, spelled W-E-A-R- -D-O-W-N.
Definition
- 1To cause (someone) physical or mental fatigue.
- 2To eventually persuade or defeat (someone) through persistent effort.
- 3Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see wear, down.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “wear down”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-E-A-R- -D-O-W-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.