expire Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb lose validity
    run out.
    • My passports expired last month
  2. verb pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life
    decease; give-up the ghost; pop off; perish; die; buy the farm; snuff it; choke; drop dead; pass away; exit; croak; pass; go; kick the bucket; conk; cash in one's chips.
    • She died from cancer
    • The children perished in the fire
    • The patient went peacefully
    • The old guy kicked the bucket at the age of 102
  3. verb expel air
    exhale; breathe out.
    • Exhale when you lift the weight

WordNet

Ex*pire" transitive verb
Etymology
L. expirare, exspirare, expiratum, exspiratum; ex out + spirare to breathe: cf. F. expirer. See Spirit.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Expired ;present participle & verbal noun Expiring
Definitions
  1. To breathe out; to emit from the lungs; to throw out from the mouth or nostrils in the process of respiration; -- opposed to inspire.
    Anatomy exhibits the lungs in a continual motion of inspiring and expiring air. Harvey.
    This chafed the boar; his nostrils flames expire. Dryden.
  2. To give forth insensibly or gently, as a fluid or vapor; to emit in minute particles; to exhale; as, the earth expires a damp vapor; plants expire odors.
    The expiring of cold out of the inward parts of the earth in winter. Bacon.
  3. To emit; to give out. Obs. Dryden.
  4. To bring to a close; to terminate. Obs.
    Expire the term Of a despised life. Shak.
Ex*pire" intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To emit the breath.
  2. To emit the last breath; to breathe out the life; to die; as, to expire calmly; to expire in agony.
  3. To come to an end; to cease; to terminate; to perish; to become extinct; as, the flame expired; his lease expires to-day; the month expired on Saturday.
  4. To burst forth; to fly out with a blast. Obs. "The ponderous ball expires." Dryden.

Webster 1913