deplete

UK/dɪˈpliːt/US/dɪˈplit/

verbB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,443 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: depleted, depleting, depletes

To deplete is to use up a supply until little is left. Deplete the stocks, depleted reserves, deplete the soil.

It is about drawing down rather than destroying, which is why it suits fish stocks, savings and soil nutrients — things that would replenish if left alone. Depleted uranium is uranium with the useful isotope removed. Note that the Latin means to empty, and that the word was originally medical.

Definitions of deplete

1verbdepleteTo use up a supply until little is left.B2+
“Years of overfishing have depleted the cod in the North Sea.”

deplete is a using up.

Where it comes from

Latin deplere means to empty — de plus plere, to fill. Complete, plenty and supply come from the same filling.

Proto-Indo-European
*pleh₁-
Latin
dēplētus — empty
English, today
deplete

Latin dēplētus (“empty”), from depleō. 1716; originally a medical term.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sharper Verbs

Practise this word

deplete in the wild

Clement, faced with a deplete college of cardinals, created thirty-one cardinals over three years, the most since Adrian IV.
Pope Clement III
Both the US 25 mm M242 Bushmaster and the British 30 mm RARDEN have relatively slow rates of fire so as not to deplete ammunition too quickly.
Autocannon
If the livestock do not consume enough nutrition, or deplete it while stressed by poor handling, the levels of glycogen will be reduced.
Darkcutter
Cereal crops deplete the ground of nitrogen, but legumes can fix nitrogen and so fertilize the soil.
Three-field system
In card games, a meld is a set of matching cards, typically three or more, that earn a player points and/or allow them to deplete their hand.
Meld (cards)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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