Other forms: exits, exiting, exited
An exit is the way out of a building, marked in Britain with a green running-figure sign. The fire exit, the nearest exit, head for the exit.
It is also the place where you leave a motorway — take the next exit — and the act of leaving: make an exit, a quick exit. As a verb it is slightly formal in speech but standard in writing and computing: exit the building, exit the program. In a script, Exit is the stage direction telling an actor to leave, which is the word's original job and the reason it is Latin.
1nounexitThe way out of a building.
“The exit is at the far end past the lifts.”
2nounplaceA place where you leave a motorway.
“Take the third exit and follow the signs.”
3verbleaveTo go out or leave.
“Exit the programme before you unplug it.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
exit is a way out.
Latin exitus meant a going out, from exire — ex-, out, plus ire, to go. It entered English as a stage direction in printed plays, written in Latin as exit, he or she goes out, and only later became an ordinary English noun.
Latin
exitus
Middle English
exit
English, today
exit
Built from
From Middle English exit, from Latin exitus. From Middle English exit, from Latin exitus (“departure, going out; way by which one may go out, egress; (figuratively) conclusion, termination; (figuratively) death; income, revenue”), from exeō (“to depart, exit; to avoid, evade; (figuratively) to escape; of time: to expire, run out”) + -tus. Exeō is derived from ex- + eō (“to go”) (ultimately from). The English word is cognate with Italian esito, Portuguese êxito, Spanish éxito. a doublet of ejido and exitus. The verb is derived from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA