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expire

UK/ɪkˈspaɪə(ɹ)/US/ɪkˈspaɪə(ɹ)/
verbC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,654 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: expired, expiring, expires

To expire is to come to the end of the period for which it was valid. The passport expired, an expired ticket, the offer expires.

It is the standard word for licences, passports, tickets and warranties, and expired food is what a shop must not sell. It also means to die, which is formal and old-fashioned, and the Latin inside it means to breathe out.

Definitions of expire

  1. 1verbexpireTo come to the end of the period for which it was valid.C1

    “My passport expires next month, so I need to renew it before the trip.”

expire is an ending.

Where it comes from

Latin exspirare means to breathe out — ex, out, plus spirare, to breathe. Spirit is a relative.

  1. Latin

    expīrō,exspīrō

  2. Middle French

    expirer

  3. Middle English

    expire

  4. English, today

    expire

Built from

  • ex- · Latin — out
  • spīrō · Latin — breathe, be alive

From Middle English expire, from Middle French expirer, from Latin expīrō,exspīrō, from ex- (“out”) + spīrō (“breathe, be alive”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

expire in the wild

  • In 1998, Disney's copyright on Pluto, set to expire at the end of 2005, was extended by the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

    Pluto (Disney)

  • WWE acquired the "Slamboree" trademark upon the sale of WCW's intellectual properties in 2001 which it allowed the trademark to expire in 2005.

    Slamboree

  • While the term of the House was not due to expire until 1954, a Senate election was due by 1 July 1953.

    1953 Australian Senate election

  • Investors receive a net credit for entering the position, and want the spreads to narrow or expire for profit.

    Credit spread (options)

  • The most urgent issue was that of whether or not to renew the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which was due to expire on 13 July 1921.

    1921 Imperial Conference

1 / 2

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.

Related words

the spīrō family

inspireexpire

expire — used about once every 3,740 pages · #8,654 · point at the bar for the others

  • expiration