What is threadbare?

Famous quotes containing the word threadbare:

    “The threadbare trees, so poor and thin,
    They are no wealthier than I;
    But with as brave a core within
    They rear their boughs to the October sky.
    Poor knights they are which bravely wait
    The charge of Winter’s cavalry,
    Keeping a simple Roman state,
    Discumbered of their Persian luxury.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Along with them
    They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain,
    A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
    A threadbare juggler and a fortune-teller,
    A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp looking wretch,
    A living dead man.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)