i Register
In some senses, threadbare is marked as figuratively, archaic, obsolete. Watch for register when choosing this word.
adj
Of cloth, clothing, furnishings, etc.: frayed and worn to an extent that the nap is damaged and the warp and weft threads show; shabby, worn-out.
His life vvas nigh vnto deaths dore yplaſte, / And thred-bare cote, and cobled ſhoes hee vvare, […]
VVill any Freedom here from you be born, / VVhoſe Cloaths are thred-bare, and vvhoſe Cloaks are torn?
In poor condition; damaged, shabby; also, poorly equipped or provided for, inadequate, meagre, scanty.
Welth and wyt, I say, be so threde bare worne, / That all is without measure, and fer beyonde the mone.
From an Underſtanding and a Conſcience, thread-bare and ragged vvith perpetual turning; […]
Of an argument, excuse, etc.: used so often that it is no longer effective or interesting; banal, clichéd, trite.
An argument or assertion with little in the way of substance or supporting evidence.
But with so many tired, lazy callbacks to its own threadbare catalog (including “Love Is Not The Answer,” a watery echo of the epic “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” from 2003’s Permission To Land), Hot Cakes marks the point where The Darkness has stopped cannibalizing the golden age of stadium rock and simply started cannibalizing itself.
Of a person: wearing clothes of threadbare (sense 1) material; hence, impoverished, poor.
Be gon, all Honeſty, / Thou fooliſh, ſlender, thredbare, ſtarving thing, be gon!