wear out welcome
wear out (one's) welcome
1. To remain a guest in a place, especially someone's home, for too long, to the point where the host no longer wishes one to stay. After the cool reception I received at breakfast, it was apparent that I had worn out my welcome at the cottage of my father's friend.
2. By extension, to do something that makes one no longer welcome in or at a place. Things were going fine at the dinner meeting until my coworker made an off-color joke, at which point it seemed that we had worn out our welcome.
See also: out, wear, welcome
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
wear out one's welcome
Fig. to stay too long (at an event to which one has been invited); to visit somewhere too often. Tom visited the Smiths so often that he wore out his welcome. At about midnight, I decided that I had worn out my welcome, so I went home.
See also: out, wear, welcome
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
wear out (one's) welcome
To visit so often or stay so long as to become a nuisance.
See also: out, wear, welcome
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
wear out one's welcome, to
To prolong a visit more than one’s host wishes. The ancients claimed that after three days guests and fish are equally stale. In the mid-nineteenth century the present locution was devised, as “an elegant rendering of the vulgar saying, ‘Fish and company stink in three days’” (Notes and Queries, 1869).
See also: out, wear
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
- I don't want to wear out my welcome
- cover
- grab (someone or something) by the throat
- grab someone by the throat
- grab someone/something by the throat
- get someone's dander up, to
- help (someone) along
- help along
- die on
- die on (someone or something)