Depleted

How to spell depleted

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce depleted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does depleted mean?

1. adjectiveReduced or used up so that little or nothing remains of a supply, resource, or quantity.

Depleted in a sentence

• After the long winter, the village food stores were almost completely depleted.

• The company's cash reserves were badly depleted by the legal costs.

Where does depleted come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb deplere, meaning 'to empty out', which was formed from the prefix de- ('off' or 'away') and the verb plere ('to fill'). Its past participle was depletus, literally 'emptied out', and that root plere is the same one that gives English the words 'complete' (filled up fully) and 'replete' (filled again). When the word first entered English around the early nineteenth century, it was largely a medical term: doctors spoke of depleting a patient by drawing off blood or other fluids. From that narrow clinical use the meaning broadened into the everyday sense of running something down until little is left. Knowing that the middle holds the Latin plere for 'fill' helps fix the spelling, since the letters run -plet-, not -pleat-.

How the word is built

• de- (away, reversal)
• plet (from Latin plere: to fill)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)