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Burn out   /bərn aʊt/   Listen
Burn out

verb
1.
Melt, break, or become otherwise unusable.  Synonyms: blow, blow out.  "The fuse blew"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Burn out" Quotes from Famous Books



... has lost most of its heat. A great deal of coal is wasted by filling the fire-box too full and leaving the drafts open till the coal is red. To keep a steady fire it is better to add a little coal often rather than to add a large quantity and allow it to burn out. Never allow dust or cinders to accumulate around a range, either inside or out. Learn to open and shut the oven door quietly and quickly. Study the amount of fire required to heat the oven to the desired temperature. Learn which is the ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless

... old friend and former schoolmate, Mr. Agassiz, to this fact; as by closely observing one of these spots with a strong refracting telescope he may discover a new species of fish, with little fishes inside of them. It is possible that the Sun may burn out after a while, which would leave this world in a state of darkness quite uncomfortable to contemplate; but even under these circumstances it is pleasant to reflect that courting and love-making would probably increase to an indefinite extent, and that many persons ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... neighborhood of rivers? Apparently it was the latter, for he threw a rapid glance on the combustible materials heaped up in the inclosure, and the expression of anxiety on his countenance seemed to deepen. This was not surprising, as the whole pile of ALFAFARES would soon burn out and could only ward off the attacks of wild beasts for ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... the vulgar cry of the animal who suffers; it is the rebellion of the atom against the laws of the universe. One must allow the candle of one's life to burn out slowly and calmly to the very end—in that ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... is now all melted out, and run, they stop up all the vents very close; and afterwards find the knots made into excellent charcoal, preferr'd by the smiths before any other whatsoever, which is made of wood; and nothing so apt to burn out when their blast ceaseth; neither do they sparkle in the fire, as many other sorts of coal do; so as, in defect of sea-coal, they make choice of this, as best for their use, and give greater prices for it. Of these knots likewise do the planters split out small slivers, about the thickness of ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... stopped on the street corner to fill and light his pipe. "Women can change everything when they want to," he said, looking at McGregor and letting the match burn out in his fingers. "They can have motherhood pensions and room to work out their own problem in the world or anything else that they really want. They can stand up face to face with men. They don't want to. They want to enslave us with ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson

... willed to bring together? Why would you sell your child to a gilded knave whom she hates? Nay, stop me not. I'd call him that and more to his face and none have ever known me lie. Why did you suffer this Frenchman or your dead son, or both of them, to try to burn out Hugh de Cressi and Red Eve as though ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... burn out thy light, and lend it not To darken her whose light excelleth thine: And die, unhallow'd thoughts, before you blot With your uncleanness that which is divine! Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine: Let fair humanity abhor the deed ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... part,” said he, “to keep the leaves alight, and feed the fire slowly. While they blaze (which is but for a little moment) I must do my errand; and before the ashes blacken, the same power that brought us carries us away. Be ready now with the match; and do you call me in good time lest the flames burn out ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... burn out his log the proper length and hack it into boat shape with his stone tools. This was very slow and tedious work. He had to handle the fire with great care for there was always the danger of spoiling the shape of the slowly forming boat. Both ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison

... fire that burns and does not burn out, which has no tendency to destruction in its very energy, and is not consumed by its own activity, is surely a symbol of the one Being whose being derives its law and its source from Himself, who only can say—'I AM THAT I AM'—the law of His nature, the foundation of His being, the only ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... Hakodate, seen Ainos at Sapporo, ridden across the northern island under the gigantic thistles, caught salmon, looked in at Vladivostock, and done half a hundred things in the time that one lazy loafer has wasted watching the barley turn from green to gold, the azaleas blossom and burn out, and the spring give way to the warm rains of summer. Now the iris has taken up the blazonry of the year, and the tide of the ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... the potatoes in. There were five of them. Raymond helped him to cover them up, and then he put more sticks upon the top. When that was done, and just as he was going back to his work, Raymond said, "See there, Caleb;—there is a fine chimney for you to burn out." ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott

... abounded, grace hath much more abounded." "Through the offense of one, many were dead." And as men multiplied, the offense abounded. The waters deluged the world, but could not wash away the dreadful stain. The fire fell from heaven, but could not burn out the accurst plague. The earth opened her mouth, but could not swallow up the monster sin. The law thundered forth its threat from the thick darkness on Sinai, but could not restrain, by all its, terrors, the ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... out all thought of that time," he exclaimed, passionately; "I would like to burn out of my soul every trace of those years in which she had a part. I loved her with the passion of youth—no, Bessie, it was not a feeling so deep and holy as my love for you, and ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... Milt, "Only we can't hit it up too fast for too long a time. Might burn out a bearing ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... beneath her vivid enamel-like surface, some rich plastic substance of character? Was she worth helping, worth the generous friendship that Corinna could give, or was she merely a bit of human driftwood that would burn out presently in the thin flame of some transient passion? "I'll take the risk," thought Corinna. "A risk is worth taking," for there was sporting blood in her veins. While she sat there in silence, listening to the artless unfolding of the girl's thoughts, she appeared to be searching ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... refreshed by the warm blue Mediterranean, my sense of comparison emphasized in Egypt, where I perceived anew the law of mutability, the inevitable law, by the decree of which the human race is eternal, while we, its constituent atoms, have but a moment of intensity to blaze and burn out. Perishable life and permanent matter are we, with a limit that may be prolonged in idea by such circumstances as we can dwell on with delight, one love-lit day being longer in the record than whole monotonous years. It ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... is there at once his own landlord and his own labourer; and he has to contend with nature as nobody in England has had to contend with it for the last five centuries at least. He finds the land covered with trees, which he has first to fell and sell as timber; then he must dig or burn out the stumps; clear the plot of boulders and large stones; drain it, fence it, plough it, and harrow it; build barns for the produce and sheds for the cows; in short, make his farm, instead of merely taking it. This is labour from which many strong men shrink in ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen

... absolutely blinding. These wandering bodies carry in themselves the principle of their incandescence. Oxygen is by no means necessary for their combustion. Some of them indeed often take fire as they rush through the layers of our atmosphere, and generally burn out before they strike the Earth. But others, on the contrary, and the greater number too, follow a track through space far more distant from the Earth than the fifty miles supposed to limit our atmosphere. In October, 1844, one of these meteors had appeared in the sky at an ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... the bed, and cover it up with the clothes, previously drawing out the bayonet. No blood issued from the wound—the haemorrhage was all internal. He covered up the face, took the key of the door, and tried it in the lock, put the candle under the grate to burn out safely, took possession of the hammer; then having examined the door, he went out, locked it from the outside, slid the key in beneath the door, and hastened away as fast as he could. He was not met by any body, and was soon safe in the street, with the bayonet, which he again concealed ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... burn out," Frank remarked; "I don't believe there's much chance of anybody else seeing it now; because it's pretty low. Our tent shows up about as plain, come to think of it; but I don't mean to ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson

... person,—if it is late at night,—if all the rest of the household have gone off to bed,—if the wind is shaking your windows as if a human hand were rattling the sashes,—if your candle or lamp is low and will soon burn out,—let me advise you to take up some good quiet sleepy volume, or attack the "Critical Notices" of the last Quarterly and leave this to be read by daylight, with cheerful voices round, and people near by who would hear you, if ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... turn to shake his head. "I'm sorry, Dr. Feldman. I have orders to burn out your cabin when you leave. But thank you." He got to his feet and left as quietly and erectly as ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey

... though life wax hoar, Till all life, spent into sighs, Burn out as consumed with desire Of death's ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... here. This is your miracle, my Philip, for in the South you know we do not have the brilliant colour so noticeable in your Northern women. But now I have only to think of you, to whisper your name, to recall something you said or did, and immediately I feel the red rose of love burn out on cheek and brow. Indeed, I think it was this magic of colour that made the difference in my appearance which seems to ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... you two concocting? Is he coming over you again to let him make more toffy, Judy, and burn out the bottom of ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... he could mend the fire and cut fuel. It mustn't be a feeble, flickering fire. The cold could get in then. All night long the flame must not be allowed to flag. In his fatigue it would be so easy to dose off,—just for a moment, and the fire would burn out. In that case the fire of his spirit would burn out too,—just as ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... concealments. I was hurt and angry, and I went away in a passion. Yours is a gentle nature, you do not suffer your feelings to torture and master you. I should not, but I am incapable of the effort necessary to their control. It is best with me that they burn out, but their very ashes lie heavily upon my heart. Our clime is a furnace, and her children are flame, at least, strange sir, some of them are a self-consuming flame. I feel that is my nature. Is not this an honest confession? I could explain ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... war-paint on, Devoutly savage as an Iroquois; Now Calvin and Servetus at one board Snuff in grave sympathy a milder roast, And o'er their claret settle Comte unread. Fagot and stake were desperately sincere: 520 Our cooler martyrdoms are done in types; And flames that shine in controversial eyes Burn out no brains but his who kindles them. This is no age to get cathedrals built: Did God, then, wait for one in Bethlehem? Worst is not yet: lo, where his coming looms, Of earth's anarchic children latest born, Democracy, a Titan who hath learned To laugh at Jove's old-fashioned thunder-bolts,— Could ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... pleasant voyage. Before six o'clock,—a check to these delusive expectations was experienced, by the boat being run aground on the Romer Shoal, near Sandy Hook. It being ebb tide, it was found impossible to get off before the next flood; consequently, the fires were allowed to burn out, and the boat remained until the flood tide took her off, which was between ten and eleven o'clock at night, making the time of detention about four or five hours. As the weather was perfectly calm, it cannot, reasonably, be supposed that the boat could have received any material ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... decarburise the granulated metal by forcing the air down the vertical pipe among the pieces of iron, the air would act much more energetically and more rapidly if I first melted the iron in the crucible, and forced the air down the pipe below the surface of the fluid metal, and thus burn out the carbon and silicum which ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... the noise too, one day, as he was standing still to light his pipe in the Vicolo dei Soldati. When it struck his ear he let the match burn out till it singed his horny fingers. His expression became even more blank than usual, but he looked up and down the street, to see if he were alone, and upward at the windows of the house opposite. Nobody ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... six or seven years old it is time for him to become a member of the Dhumkuria or common dormitory. The eldest boys catch hold of his left arm and, with burning cloth, burn out five deep marks on the lower part of his arm. This is done so that he may be recognised as an Oraon at his death when he goes into the other world." The ceremony was probably the initiation to manhood on arrival at puberty, and resembled those prevalent among the Australian tribes. With ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... glance of fire. "Shall we stand and tremble till the pestilence slays us all with its arrows, even as a herd of deer, driven into a deep gulch and surrounded, stand till they are shot down by the hunters? Shall we stay in our lodges, and die without lifting a hand? Shall disease burn out the life of our warriors, when they might fall in battle? No! Let us slay the women and children, cross the mountains, and die fighting the rebels! Is it not better to fall in battle like warriors than to perish ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... out of it. And there is no injustice in the law it is the essence of justice itself, for it gives to each just what is required to fill the indwelling desires, or else the conditions and experiences designed to burn out the desires which are holding one back, and the destruction of which will make possible ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... have interests in life. The candle would soon burn out otherwise. What are yours, ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... problem, Dave thought bitterly. As nice as the discovery that there was no fuel for the equipment here. He spent an hour rigging up a portable saw to use in attempting to cut off a smaller piece of the sky, and then saw the motor burn out when he switched it on. It turned out that all electricity here was d.c., conjured up by commanding the electrons in a wire to move in one direction, and completely useless with a.c. motors. It might have been useful for welding, but there ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey

... they honour the most, as the greatest and most sacred fire. The worship of fire is carried to such an extent by them that they do not pursue any trades which require the use of fire, neither will they fire a gun, or extinguish a light. They let their kitchen-fires burn out. Many travellers even affirm that they will not assist in extinguishing a conflagration; but this is not the case. I was assured that on such an occasion, some years since, many Parsees had been seen giving their help ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... comma, colon, semicolon, period, full stop; end &c 67; death &c 360. V. cease, discontinue, desist, stay, halt; break off, leave off; hold, stop, pull up, stop short; stick, hang fire; halt; pause, rest; burn out, blow out, melt down. have done with, give over, surcease, shut up shop; give up &c (relinquish) 624. hold one's hand, stay one's hand; rest on one's oars repose on one's laurels. come to a stand, come to a standstill; come to a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... this divine white-heat of temper, were it only for a season and not again, the Nation is thenceforth considerable through all its remaining history. What immensities of DROSS and crypto-poisonous matter will it not burn out of itself in that high temperature, in the course of a few years! Witness Cromwell and his Puritans,—making England habitable even under the Charles-Second terms for a couple of centuries more. Nations are benefited, I believe, for ages, by being thrown once into divine white-heat in this manner. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... know what you mean by "believing in it". I've never been unaware, certainly, of his disposition, from his earliest time, to daub and draw; but I confess I've hoped it would burn out.' ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.

... was his inextinguishable nationality. In vain they had brought him over the seas in early boyhood; in vain had he suffered captivity, conversion, circumcision; in vain they had passed him through fire in their Arabian campaigns, they could not cut away or burn out poor Osman’s inborn love of all that was Scotch; in vain men called him Effendi; in vain he swept along in eastern robes; in vain the rival wives adorned his harem: the joy of his heart still plainly lay in this, that he had three shelves of books, and that the books were thoroughbred ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... from the grave is not regularly followed, in some instances it is, but the feast is always held, and on the night of the day on which the feast takes place, the fire, which has been in some cases kept burning for over a month, is allowed to burn out, as the spirit, being now safe and happy in the spirit-land, has no further need of it."[347] "In this spirit-land eternal youth prevails, there are no old men nor old women, but all are in the full vigour of the prime of life, or are attaining thereto, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... a deep breath, and her face glowed with that pagan exultation in bodily strength and prowess, which all the refining fires of civilisation will never burn out of the human heart. But as she turned with praise on her lips, ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... and for next morning. Three lengths of this: first, for the grate in his father's and mother's room—the best to be found among the logs of the woodpile: good dry hickory for its ready blaze and rousing heat; to be mixed with seasoned oak, lest it burn out too quickly—an expensive wood; and perhaps also with some white ash from a tree he had felled in the autumn. Then sundry back-logs and knots of black walnut for the cabin of the two negro women (there being no sense of the value of this ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... through him, like swarms of black and poisonous worms, while the good are also thronging near him, like clouds of bright blue fireflies. The worms crawl over his heart, boring and bleeding it as they writhe; the fireflies would burn out the black congested gore, and cure the festering wounds, but new swarms of reptiles are forever sliming into life, and ever deeper and more gangrened are the wounds they make. Everywhere danger, everywhere ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... be carved out to a depth of about 1/4 in. with a sharp carving tool. If such a tool is not at hand, or the amateur cannot use it well, an excellent substitute will be found in using a sharp-pointed and red-hot poker, or pieces of heavy wire heated to burn out the pattern to the desired depth. The handle also has a scroll to be engraved. When the whole ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... still a girl, and a girl of strong imagination. Her heart beat audibly; she put the lamp down in the middle of the room, where it might cast more light, and render less ghastly the last flicker of one wax-candle, the fellows of which had been left to burn out in their sockets. Then she sat down, covered her eyes, and tried to think connectedly of all that had happened ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... English. He's nursing that all up, and it isn't his natur' to shake hands yet. Give the fire time to burn out, and then try him, my lad; he'll be a different sort then ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... and put away. Judgment must begin at the house of God. There must be conviction of sin for sanctification. Beseech God to give His Spirit as a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning—to discover and burn out sin ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray

... hardly build this kind of a fire unless you have a good axe and know how to chop. For the first thing that you need is a solid backlog, the thicker the better, to hold the heat and reflect it into the tent. This log must not be too dry, or it will burn out quickly. Neither must it be too damp, else it will smoulder and discourage the fire. The best wood for it is the body of a yellow birch, and, next to that, a green balsam. It should be five or six feet long, and at least two and a half feet in diameter. If you cannot find a tree thick ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... as he stepped down out of the pilot-house, "order two companies of small-armed men to be called away, and you and Mr. Le Dell get ready to go on shore with me. By the way," he added, turning to George, "I have orders to burn out this ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon

... cares for hisself, and the less for his partner. At twenty, we diddles the public; at forty, we diddles our cronies! Be modest, Paul, and stick to your sitivation in life. Go not with fine tobymen, who burn out like a candle wot has a thief in it,—all flare, and gone in a whiffy! Leave liquor to the aged, who can't do without it. Tape often proves a halter, and there be's no ruin like blue ruin! Read your Bible, and talk like ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... an hour, we replaced the saddles, and F., who by this time began to mistrust his knowledge of the jungles by night, allowed one of the peons, who was sure he knew every inch of the road, to lead the way. Leaving the smouldering flames to flicker and burn out in solitude, we again plunged into the darkness of the night, threading our way through the thick jungle grass, now loaded with dewy moisture, and dripping copious showers upon us from its high walls at either side of the narrow ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis



Words linked to "Burn out" :   give out, conk out, give way, break, break down, go, die, go bad, blow, fail



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