burn out

present singular third person burns out · participle present burning out · participle past burned out · past burned out · Commonwealth participle past burnt out · Commonwealth past burnt out

1. transitiveTo destroy by fire.

   All four engines and the entire train were derailed, and owing to the fact that all the vehicles except the sleeping cars were gas-lit, the whole of the coaching stock except the two rear brakes was burned out, beginning with the two front coaches, which were completely wrecked.

   1941 April, “The Why and the Wherefore: Hawes Junction Collision”, in Railway Magazine, page 191 (the collision occurred in 1910)

2. intransitiveTo become extinguished due to lack of fuel.

   The candle finally burned out.

   1 more example

   1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter XVIII Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, "old woman,"—"quite troublesome."

3. intransitiveTo become nonfunctional (especially of lightbulbs or similar light-producing devices).
4. intransitiveTo tire due to overwork; to overwork to one's limit.

   After six months of twelve-hour workdays, most people just burn out and quit.

5. transitiveTo cause (someone) to tire due to overwork; to cause (someone) to overwork to one's limit.
6. intransitiveslanguncommonTo end one's shift at a job.

   I start my shift at three in the afternoon, and get to burn out at midnight.

7. intransitiveautomotiveTo have one's tires skid against the ground; to peel off, peel out.
8. idiomaticTo make (someone) unavailable for work involving exposure to ionizing radiation by employing (the person) in such work until the person's accumulated exposure reaches the maximum permitted for an administrative period, typically a year.

   The repairs on this nuclear reactor have burned out every welder in the province.

9. intransitivebowlingTo use up too much energy when first bowled and to therefore not finish strongly.

   Synonyms: burn up, roll out

10. intransitiveTo be destroyed by fire.

    An abandoned tank was burning out at the edge of the battlefield.

plural burn outs

1. countablenonstandarduncountableNonstandard form of burnout.

   His burn out hadn't been caused by too many dead bodies; it was from spending his life doing for people what most of them had refused to do for themselves.

   2002, Chuck Purdy, The Street Saint: Emergency in the Emergency Services