[This word can be applied to both people and places. In the former instance, it tends to refer more to a person’s worried or anxious appearance, and in the later instance, it tends to refer more to a place being rundown or worn-out looking. Examples are both are given here] The mugshots of the unclaimed dead are pasted on the morgue wall. People with careworn expressions peer back at the black and white pictures, hoping yet fearing that they will recognize one of the battered faces staring back. (Author not given, “At Least 30 Bodies Unclaimed Two Days After Pakistan Bombing,” Arizona Daily Star, 10/21/2007.)
In public parks around [New Jersey], there are trails that need to be rebuilt, miles of roads that need to be repaved, and dozens of aged buildings on newly acquired conservation lands that need to be taken down for public safety. … [T]heir careworn appearance [is the result of] years of tight budgets. (Iver Peterson, “A Reprieve For State Parks, But Not a Solution,” The New York Times, 5/11/2008.)
This word can also be a synonym for looking worried, fatigued, anxious, exhausted, tired, rundown or weary.
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