Expired

How to spell expired

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce expired

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does expired mean?

1. adjectiveNo longer valid or usable because the official period of validity has ended.
2. verbCame to an end, or ceased to be valid, after a fixed period of time.

Expired in a sentence

• adjective

  The border guard refused the expired passport.

• verb

  The warranty expired two days before the laptop failed.

• adjective

  She found a tub of expired yoghurt at the back of the fridge.

• verb

  His gym membership expired at the end of the month.

Where does expired come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past form of the verb 'expire', which English took in the late 1300s from the Old French 'expirer', itself drawn from the Latin 'exspirare'. That Latin verb was built from 'ex-', meaning 'out', and 'spirare', meaning 'to breathe', so its literal sense was 'to breathe out'. From there it came to mean breathing one's last, and so 'to die', which is still a formal sense in English. The idea of something running out of life then broadened to documents, deadlines, and contracts that 'die' on a set date. The same 'spirare' root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'respiration', 'inspire', and 'perspire', and remembering that breathing core explains the single 'i' and the 'pir' spelling rather than 'per'.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• spir (breathe, from Latin spirare)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)