Wore is the past tense of the verb wear, which means to have clothing, jewelry, or accessories on your body. When you say you wore your favorite shirt yesterday, you're explaining what you had on. A queen who wore a golden crown at her coronation had that crown on her head during the ceremony.

The word applies to anything you put on your body: you might have wore sneakers to gym class, wore a watch to keep track of time, or wore a costume for Halloween. Sometimes people describe how clothing looked on someone by saying “she wore it well” or “he wore those colors proudly.”

Wore can also describe how something became damaged through use over time. A path through the woods becomes worn when many feet walk over it repeatedly. Your favorite book might look worn from being read so many times, with bent corners and a cracked spine. In this sense, something that's worn out has been used so much it barely works anymore, like shoes with holes in the soles or a pencil eraser rubbed down to nothing.