Meaning

adjective repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse

adjective having the nap worn away so that the threads show through

originPIE word *bʰosós From Middle English thred-bar, thred-bare (“of cloth, clothing, etc.: worn to such an extent that the warp and weft threads show, shabby, worn-out; (figurative) inadequate, poor”) [and other forms], from thred (“piece of textile twine”) (from Old English þrǣd (“thread”), from Proto-Germanic *þrēduz (“thread; twisted fibre”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to drill,…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0