EXPIRE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does expire mean? 

• EXPIRE (verb)
  The verb EXPIRE has 3 senses:

1. lose validity

2. pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life

3. expel air

  Familiarity information: EXPIRE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EXPIRE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they expire    ... he / she / it expires   
Past simple: expired   
Past participle: expired   
-ing form: expiring   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lose validity

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

expire; run out

Context example:

My passports expired last month

Hypernyms (to "expire" is one way to...):

discontinue (come to or be at an end)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

expiration (a coming to an end of a contract period)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

buy the farm; cash in one's chips; choke; conk; croak; decease; die; drop dead; exit; expire; give-up the ghost; go; kick the bucket; pass; pass away; perish; pop off; snuff it

Context example:

The old guy kicked the bucket at the age of 102

Hypernyms (to "expire" is one way to...):

change state; turn (undergo a transformation or a change of position or action)

Verb group:

break; break down; conk out; die; fail; give out; give way; go; go bad (stop operating or functioning)

die (suffer or face the pain of death)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "expire"):

abort (cease development, die, and be aborted)

asphyxiate; stifle; suffocate (be asphyxiated; die from lack of oxygen)

buy it; pip out (be killed or die)

drown (die from being submerged in water, getting water into the lungs, and asphyxiating)

predecease (die before; die earlier than)

famish; starve (die of food deprivation)

fall (die, as in battle or in a hunt)

succumb; yield (be fatally overwhelmed)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

expiration (euphemistic expressions for death)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Expel air

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Synonyms:

breathe out; exhale; expire

Context example:

Exhale when you lift the weight

Hypernyms (to "expire" is one way to...):

breathe; respire; suspire; take a breath (draw air into, and expel out of, the lungs)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "expire"):

snort (make a snorting sound by exhaling hard)

blow (exhale hard)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

expiration (the act of expelling air from the lungs)

expiratory (of or relating to the breathing out phase of respiration)

 Context examples 

I dropped my gun and held him in my arms, but he almost instantly expired.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When I entered I found that the sufferer to whose aid I had been summoned had that instant expired.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When the time was expired, Traddles gave her his arm; and we all went out together to the old house, without saying one word on the way.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His leave of absence will soon expire, and he must return to his regiment.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Why did I not then expire!

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Issue associated with the amount of gas that is inspired and expired during one respiratory cycle.

(Fluctuation of Tidal Volume Medical Device Problem, Food and Drug Administration)

You told me, four weeks ago, that Thurston had an option on some South African property which would expire in a month, and which he desired you to share with him.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A device that approximates a blood alcohol level from the components of an expired breath.

(Breath Alcohol Test Device, NCI Thesaurus)

Seeing me, she roused herself: she made a sort of effort to smile, and framed a few words of congratulation; but the smile expired, and the sentence was abandoned unfinished.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A radioconjugate consisting of dextromethorphan, a synthetic, methylated dextrorotatory analogue of levorphanol, conjugated with carbon-13 [(13)C] with radiotracer activity. (13)C-dextromethorphan can be used in a breath-test phenotype assay of CYP2D6 activity, based on the principle that CYP2D6-mediated O-demethylation cleaves a (13)CH3 that enters the body's carbon pool to be eliminated ultimately as (13)CO2 in expired air, which can be measured.

(Carbon C-13 Dextromethorphan, NCI Thesaurus)