Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 18:5

"yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her continual coming." — Luke 18:5 (ASV)

Lest by her continual coming she weary me.—This latter verb is again one that takes its place in the vocabulary of unusual words common to Saint Luke and Saint Paul. It meets us in 1 Corinthians 9:27, where it is rendered, I keep under my body.

Literally, however, it expresses the act of a boxer who strikes a blow that leaves a livid bruise on an opponent’s face, and it appears to have been transferred from the arena to common life through the natural transition of popular metaphor into the forms of colloquial language.

So, we speak of people “hitting hard” or “giving a knock-down blow” in controversy or debate. What is described here is a continuous shower of blows, each of which falls short of a “knock-down,” while their cumulative effect is, in the nearest modern English equivalent, that a person is so “punished” that they are glad to yield at any cost.