where is the meaning of the idiom burning the candle at both ends?
Burn the candle at both ends is a fairly old idiom. We will look at the meaning of the term burn the candle at both ends, where it comes from, and some examples of the idiomâs meaning in sentences. To burn the candle at both ends means to exhaust oneself by working too much, going to bed late and getting up early. When one burns the candle at both ends, he is living at a frenetic pace. The term burn the candle at both ends is derived from the French phrase Brusler la chandelle par les deux bouts. Coined around the beginning of the seventeenth century, the early meaning of burn the candle at both ends was to be a spendthrift, to be wasteful.