Wery

Part of speech: adverb, adjective

Definitions

1. Feeling drained of energy or patience, as an archaic spelling of the adjective meaning tired ; to cause someone to become exhausted or lose energy
2. Describing a person worn out by effort or long strain ; to drain the strength or patience of someone until they feel fatigued
3. Showing the fatigue of prolonged effort or boredom ; to tire someone out gradually through repetition or hardship

Etymology: "Wery" is a spelling of "very" that tries to capture how the word was pronounced in speech, and it appears in writing as dialect or humorous dialogue. The spelling is an attempt to render a casual, dialect pronunciation of "very," not a separate word with its own history. "Very" has a surprisingly honest origin: it comes from Middle English "verray," meaning "true," borrowed from Old French "verai," which descends from Early Medieval Latin "vērāgus," built from Classical Latin "vērāx" (truthful), itself from "vērus" (true). The word once meant what its root says, so that "the very man" meant "the true man" or "the actual man." Over centuries, "very" shifted from confirming that something was genuine to intensifying an adjective, so "very tired" grew out of a sense of "truly tired." The English word is distantly related to Old English "wǣr," also meaning "true."