Wear

TO WEAR IT, verb. phr. (old).—‘TO WEAR IT UPON a person (meaning to wear a nose, or a conk) is synonymous with nosing, conking, splitting, or coming it, and is merely one of those fanciful variations so much admired by FLASH PEOPLE’ (GROSE).

  PHRASES.  TO WEAR THE HEART UPON THE SLEEVE (see SLEEVE); TO WEAR THE BREECHES (see BREECHES); TO WEAR THE WILLOW (see WILLOW); TO WEAR YELLOW STOCKINGS or HOSE (see YELLOW); TO WEAR THE COLLAR = to be subject to control, or under the direction of another (chiefly political); TO WEAR THE BANDS (see BAND); TO WEAR ILL (or WELL) = to look older (or younger) than one’s years. Also PROVERBIAL, ‘Let every cuckold wear his own horns’; ‘to wear Pannier-alley on one’s back’ (see PANNIER-MAN).