WEARING AWAY

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does wearing away mean? 

• WEARING AWAY (noun)
  The noun WEARING AWAY has 1 sense:

1. (geology) the mechanical process of wearing or grinding something down (as by particles washing over it)

  Familiarity information: WEARING AWAY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WEARING AWAY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(geology) the mechanical process of wearing or grinding something down (as by particles washing over it)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural processes

Synonyms:

eating away; eroding; erosion; wearing; wearing away

Hypernyms ("wearing away" is a kind of...):

geologic process; geological process ((geology) a natural process whereby geological features are modified)

Domain category:

geology (a science that deals with the history of the earth as recorded in rocks)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wearing away"):

chatter mark (marks on a glaciated rock caused by the movement of a glacier)

ablation (the erosive process that reduces the size of glaciers)

abrasion; attrition; corrasion; detrition (erosion by friction)

beach erosion (the erosion of beaches)

deflation ((geology) the erosion of soil as a consequence of sand and dust and loose rocks being removed by the wind)

planation (the process of erosion whereby a level surface is produced)

soil erosion (the washing away of soil by the flow of water)

Derivation:

wear away (become ground down or deteriorate)

 Context examples 

She’s wearing away under it—just wearing away before my eyes.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He said, almost in the same words as formerly, that Ham was just the same, “wearing away his life with kiender no care nohow for 't; but never murmuring, and liked by all”.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He said that he was wearing away his time fruitlessly where he was, that letters from the friends he had formed in London desired his return to complete the negotiation they had entered into for his Indian enterprise.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Learning from Traddles that the invitation referred to the evening then wearing away, I expressed my readiness to do honour to it; and we went off together to the lodging which Mr. Micawber occupied as Mr. Mortimer, and which was situated near the top of the Gray's Inn Road.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)