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burn out

verb · noun

Simple meaning

To tire due to overwork.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

burnowt

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈbɝˈnaʊt

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. intransitive

    To tire due to overwork; to overwork to one's limit.

  2. intransitive

    To become extinguished due to lack of fuel.

  3. intransitive

    To become nonfunctional (especially of lightbulbs or similar light-producing devices).

  4. Melt, break, or become otherwise unusable

  5. transitive

    To destroy by fire.

  6. idiomatic

    To make (someone) unavailable for work involving exposure to ionizing radiation by employing (the person) in such work until the person's accumulated exposure reaches the maximum permitted for an administrative period, typically a year.

noun

  1. Nonstandard spelling of burnout.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: To tire due to overwork; to overwork to one's limit.

Used this way, burn out is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.