exhaust

present singular third person exhausts · participle present exhausting · participle past exhausted · past exhausted

1. transitiveTo draw or let out wholly; to drain completely.

   The water was exhausted out of the well.

   1 more example

   Moisture of the earth is exhausted by evaporation.

2. transitiveTo empty by drawing or letting out the contents.

   to exhaust a well

   2 more examples

   to exhaust a treasury

   It takes approximately 8 to 9 minutes to exhaust the tank of air and fill it with water.

   1922, Municipal Engineering and the Sanitary Record, page 68

3. figurativelyliterallytransitiveTo use up; to deplete, drain or expend wholly, or use until the supply comes to an end.

   to exhaust one's resources

   4 more examples

   My grandfather seemingly never exhausts his supply of bad jokes.

   to exhaust all possibilities

   You're exhausting my patience.

   I exhausted my strength walking up the hill.

4. transitiveTo tire out; to wear out; to cause to be without any energy.

   The marathon exhausted me.

   1 more example

   It is a branch that climbs for 11½ miles into the picturesque Wealden hills until, apparently exhausted by the effort, it terminates a mile short of the village of Hawkhurst.

   1960 March, H. P. White, “The Hawkhurst branch of the Southern Region”, in Trains Illustrated, page 170

5. transitiveTo discuss thoroughly or completely.

   That subject has already been exhausted.

6. transitivechemistryTo subject to the action of various solvents in order to remove all soluble substances or extractives.

   to exhaust a drug successively with water, alcohol, and ether

7. transitiveTo expel (as exhaust).

   Infections can be reduced further if outside air is exhausted after a single use, rather than re-circulated.

   2013 November 18, Michael Phiri, Bing Chen, Sustainability and Evidence-Based Design in the Healthcare Estate, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 141

   1 more example

   They [the doors between two clean rooms] get connected, and then high-pressure air blasts out anything in between: all the outside atmosphere is exhausted by fresh, clean air.

   2023 May 8, Tom Scott, The world's cleanest railway

8. intransitiveTo discharge or escape (as exhaust).

   Steam from both high pressure cylinders exhausts through the respective receiver pipes into cylinders.

   1910, Walter Mason Camp, The Railway and Engineering Review, page 609

   1 more example

   Figure 7.13e shows a 4/2 valve that normally has the pressure applied to output 4 while output 3 exhausts through the exhaust port. When activated, the pressure switches to output 3 while output 4 exhausts through the exhaust port.

   2022 July 13, Alan Darbyshire, Charles Gibson, Mechanical Engineering, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 16

plural exhausts

1. A system consisting of the parts of an engine through which burned gases or steam are discharged; see also exhaust system.
2. The steam let out of a cylinder after it has done its work there.

   A lovely crisp exhaust: a feeling of almost unlimited power combined with complete freedom of running: and, to crown it all, a most melodious and wholly American chime whistle—these were my immediate impressions as we stormed rapidly out of Göttingen, intent on winning back some of the lost time.

   1960 October, P. Ransome-Wallis, “Modern motive power of the German Federal Railway: Part Two”, in Trains Illustrated, page 611

   1 more example

   Travellers over the London & North Western main line in bygone days will need no reminder of the pattering of cinders on the carriage roofs, the fountains of sparks from the chimneys at night and the distance from which the exhaust of approaching locomotives could be heard, due to the fierceness of their blast in such conditions.

   1962 June, Cecil J. Allen, “Locomotive Running Past and Present”, in Modern Railways, page 399

3. The dirty air let out of a room through a register or pipe provided for the purpose.

   If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the[…]hazards of gasoline cars: air and water pollution, noise and noxiousness, constant coughing and the undeniable rise in cancers caused by smoke exhaust particulates.

   2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion

4. An exhaust pipe, especially on a motor vehicle.
5. Exhaust gas.

1. not comparableobsoleteExhausted; used up.