Ware and wear sound the same but have unrelated meanings.
Ware
Ware is a noun, meaning “goods” or “merchandise,” “items for sale.” Wear is a verb with two unrelated meanings: “to have clothing on” and “to erode (eat away) a material.” Ware is a simple word, only meaning “merchandise”—what a person is selling. Its grammar is a little strange because it is used only in the plural; for example, you cannot talk about one ware:
What kind of wares are you selling?
However, it also appears in many compound words, such as houseware, sportsware, and earthware (pottery), where it can be singular, as a mass noun (like water, love, and furniture):
The store was filled with sportsware.
Ware is sometimes heard as a shortening of aware (“conscious”) or wary (“careful”):
She was ‘ware of the dangers in going to the jungle.
Wear
To wear (wear, wore, worn) has many uses.
The first meaning is “to have on one’s body, like clothing.” And this can be extended to many many things, including abstractions:
She wore a red dress to the dance.
He wore a beautiful smile.
She wore their praise gracefully.
He wore his hair in a ponytail.
She wears her age well.
The other major meaning of wear is “to erode, eat away, decay, or diminish”; it is usually used with away or out, or with an object describing the results:
The rocks were worn away from years of wind and rain.
She wore out her shoes by walking so much.
He wore holes in his shoes from walking.
Something worn out is no longer usable, but otherwise wear and wear away do not mean “destroyed”—only lessened.
Wear can also be used with the object as the subject, like so:
These shoes wear well; they do not wear out quickly.
The stones are wearing away from wind over the years.
That laptop will wear out in a few years.
Wear occurs in many popular phrases:
My patience is wearing thin. = “My patience is almost gone.”
He wore out his welcome. = “He made himself unwelcome with his behavior.”
The drug will wear off. = “The effects of the drug will go away.”
The day wore on. = “The day approached its end.”
Wear is truly a most flexible word!