exhaust

UK/ɪɡˈzɔːst/US/ɪɡˈzɔst/

nounB22 meanings Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,731 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: exhausted, exhausting, exhausts

The exhaust is the pipe that carries burnt gases away from an engine. Along the underside, and out at the back.

The system includes a silencer and, since the 1990s, a catalytic converter, which cleans the gases and is valuable enough to be stolen. A blowing exhaust is an obvious fault and a common one. There is a completely separate and very common verb meaning to use up entirely or to tire out, so exhausting a supply and being exhausted share a word with the pipe.

Definitions of exhaust

1nounexhaustThe system carrying waste gases away from an engine.B2
“The exhaust has gone on the old van.”
2verbuseTo use something up completely, or to tire somebody out.B1
“The climb will exhaust anybody who is out of practice.”

Where it comes from

Exhaust is drawing the water out. Latin ex, out, plus haurio, to draw or to drain, so an exhausted person has been emptied the way a well is emptied.

Latin
exhaustus
English, today
exhaust

Built from

exhaurio · Latin — to draw out, drink up, empty, exhaust
ex · Latin — out
haurio · Latin — to draw (especially water), drain

From Latin exhaustus. From Latin exhaustus, past participle of exhaurio (“to draw out, drink up, empty, exhaust”), from ex (“out”) + haurio (“to draw (especially water), drain”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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