Exhaustion

How to spell exhaustion

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce exhaustion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does exhaustion mean?

1. nounA state of extreme physical or mental tiredness, leaving little or no energy.
2. nounThe complete using up or draining of a supply, resource, or reserve.

Exhaustion in a sentence

• After the double shift she collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

• The report warned about the exhaustion of the region's groundwater.

• The marathon runners showed clear signs of exhaustion near the finish line.

• Continued mining led to the gradual exhaustion of the ore deposits.

Where does exhaustion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb exhaurire, meaning 'to draw out' or 'to drain completely', formed from ex- 'out' and haurire 'to draw, to bail water'. The literal image was of emptying a vessel by drawing every last drop from it, and that sense of total emptying carried straight into the figurative meanings. Latin produced the past participle exhaustus, from which the English verb 'exhaust' arose in the sixteenth century, with the noun 'exhaustion' following shortly after to name the state of being utterly drained. From the original idea of draining a container, the word expanded to cover both the using up of physical resources and the draining of a person's energy until none is left. The silent 'h' tucked after the 'x' is the fossil of that Latin haurire root, and it is exactly the letter writers tend to drop, so picturing the draining 'haust' core helps fix the spelling.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• haust (from Latin haurire: to draw or drain)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)