EXHAUSTION

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does exhaustion mean? 

• EXHAUSTION (noun)
  The noun EXHAUSTION has 3 senses:

1. extreme fatigue

2. serious weakening and loss of energy

3. the act of exhausting something entirely

  Familiarity information: EXHAUSTION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EXHAUSTION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Extreme fatigue

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("exhaustion" is a kind of...):

fatigue; tiredness; weariness (temporary loss of strength and energy resulting from hard physical or mental work)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "exhaustion"):

inanition (exhaustion resulting from lack of food)

frazzle (a state of extreme exhaustion)

brain-fag; mental exhaustion (exhaustion that affects mental keenness)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Serious weakening and loss of energy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

debilitation; enervation; enfeeblement; exhaustion

Hypernyms ("exhaustion" is a kind of...):

weakening (becoming weaker)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of exhausting something entirely

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("exhaustion" is a kind of...):

depletion (the act of decreasing something markedly)

Derivation:

exhaust (wear out completely)

exhaust (use up the whole supply of)

exhaust (use up (resources or materials))

exhaust (deplete)

 Context examples 

Recent research revealed that Greenland might have been settled only after Icelandic walruses were hunted to exhaustion.

(Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland, University of Cambridge)

Failure to capture manifests as a high pacing threshold that results in either intermittent failure to capture at maximal programmed output or excessive battery drain leading to premature battery exhaustion.

(Failure of Cardiac Pacemaker to Capture, NCI Thesaurus)

There can be many other causes, including: • Medicines • Heat exhaustion • Cancers • Autoimmune diseases

(Fever, NIH)

Cells lost through exhaustion or damage are replenished by stem cells.

(Scientists find new type of cell that helps tadpoles’ tails regenerate, University of Cambridge)

They fought on, through exhaustion and beyond, to exhaustion immeasurable and inconceivable, until the crowd of brutes, its blood-lust sated, terrified by what it saw, begged them impartially to cease.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The man and the woman had eaten nothing since the previous day, and were weak from hunger and exhaustion.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

I thanked God—experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful joy—and slept.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Also called: Sunstroke, Heat Exhaustion, Heat exhaustion

(Heat Illness, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

It is characterized by extreme exhaustion associated with paroxysms of high fever, sweating, shaking chills, and anemia.

(Malaria, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

“Though unmusical, German is the most expressive of all languages,” he observed when Von Bork had stopped from pure exhaustion.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)