Wear of metals by polymers is such a subject being ignored for a long time. In order to raise general concern, a review of its developments in the past decades is made, in which the emphasis is mainly put on the wear behavior and the wear mechanisms of metals by plastics and rubbers respectively. Although the essential details were revealed initially, many respects are still obscure to us, as this problem is complicated. Therefore, there is clearly a need for further study. (C) 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.