expire
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɪkˈspaɪə(ɹ)/
ipa: /ɛkˈspaɪə(ɹ)/
rhymes: -aɪə(ɹ)
Forms: form: expires
form: expiring
form: expired
form: expired
form: exspire
Etymology: From Middle English expire, from Middle French expirer, from Latin expīrō, exspīrō, from ex- (“out”) + spīrō (“breathe, be alive”).
Senses: examples: text: The patient expired in hospital.
text: And then, his head ſinking on his pillow, he expired; at about half an hour after ten.
ref: 1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter CXIII”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume VII, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; […], →OCLC, page 415:
text: Hippolita, ſcarce more alive than her daughter, was regardleſs of every thing but her: but when the tender Iſabella’s care would have likewiſe removed her, while the ſurgeons examined Matilda’s wound, ſhe cried, remove me! never! never! I lived but in her, and will expire with her.
ref: 1764 December 24 (indicated as 1765), Onuphrio Muralto, translated by William Marshal [pseudonyms; Horace Walpole], chapter V, in The Castle of Otranto, […], London: […] Tho[mas] Lownds […], →OCLC, pages 190–191:
text: Soon the patient had no longer sufficient strength to sit up; the trunk of the body was inclined to the right side, the head high and thrown backward, the mouth wide open: she seemed to stifle rather than respire: lastly, speech and respiration failed her; she uttered, however, in a feeble voice, some incoherent words, said she felt she was dying, and, accordingly, expired the sixth day after entrance.
ref: 1833, R. J. Bertin, translated by Charles W. Chauncy, Treatise on the Diseases of the Heart, and Great Vessels, Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blnachard, page 185:
text: People bled to death like gentlemen in an operating room or expired without comment in an oxygen tent.
ref: 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:
synonyms: word: assume room temperature
word: auger in
word: be called home
word: be gathered to one's fathers
word: be no more
word: be with Jesus
word: be with the Lord
word: bite the big one
word: bite the biscuit
word: bite the dust
word: buy the farm
word: buy it
word: cark it
word: cash in
word: cash in one's chips
word: check out
word: close one's eyes for the last time
word: code
word: conk out
word: croak
word: cross over
word: cross rainbow bridge
word: cross the Great Divide
word: cross the Styx
word: decease
word: decompose
word: dematerialize
word: depart
word: disincarnate
word: draw one's last breath
word: drop off the hooks
word: exit
word: expire
word: flatline
word: forfare
word: get to be like the one
word: give one's all
word: give up the ghost
word: go for a burton
word: go gentle into that good night
word: go out
word: go over to the majority
word: go the way of all flesh
word: go the way of the dinosaurs
word: go the way of the dodo
word: go the way of the dodo bird
word: go to glory
word: go to one's reward
word: go west
word: hand in one's checks
word: hand in one's dinner pail
word: hop the twig
word: join the choir invisible
word: keel over
word: kick the bucket
word: kick off
word: knock off
word: liquidate
word: lose my life for Jesus Christ
word: lose the number of one's mess
word: meet one's doom
word: meet one's end
word: meet one's maker
word: pass
word: pass away
word: pass in one's checks
word: pass in one's marble
word: pass on
word: pass over
word: pass the river
word: pay nature's debt
word: pay the debt of nature
word: peg out
word: perish
word: pop off
word: pop one's clogs
word: shuffle off this mortal coil
word: sink
word: sleep with one's fathers
word: slip away
word: snuff it
word: succumb
word: take a dirt nap
word: turn up one's toes
word: yield up the ghost
glosses: To die.
examples: text: My library card will expire next week.
glosses: To lapse and become invalid.
examples: text: And when the thousand yeeres are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, […]
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 20:7:
glosses: To come to an end; to conclude.
examples: text: Anatomy exhibits the lungs in a continual motion of inspiring and expiring air.
ref: 1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus, Or, The Anatomy of Consumptions:
text: This chafed the boar; his nostrils flames expire.
ref: 1717, John Dryden, Meleager and Atalanta:
text: Animals expire carbon and plants inspire it; plants expire oxygen and animals inspire it.
ref: 1843, Loring Dudley Chapin, (Please provide the book title or journal name):
antonyms: inspire
glosses: To exhale; to breathe out.
examples: text: the expiring of cold out of the inward parts of the earth in winter
ref: 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:
glosses: To give forth insensibly or gently, as a fluid or vapour; to emit in minute particles.
examples: text: Expire the term / Of a despised life.
ref: c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv]:
glosses: To bring to a close; to terminate.
Derived terms: expirable
expiree
expiry
unexpire
Related terms: expiration
inspire
respiration
respire
spirit