burn the candle at both ends

Verb

burn the candle at both ends (third-person singular simple present burns the candle at both ends, present participle burning the candle at both ends, simple past and past participle burned the candle at both ends or burnt the candle at both ends)

1. (idiomatic) To work hard night and day; to sleep late and wake up early; to overwork or overexert oneself.
   • Von Gerhard's face was unsmiling. “So,” he said, slowly. “You burn the candle at both ends. All day you write, is it not so? And at night you come home to write still more? Ach, Kindchen!—Na, we shall change all that. […]1911, Edna Ferber, chapter 8, in Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed
   • I don’t look older, I just look worse, I think. Honestly, when I’m walking down the street, no one’s ever like, “Hey, look at that man!” I think they’re just like “Whoa! That tall child looks terrible! Get some rest, tall child! You can't keep burning the candle at both ends!"2012, John Mulaney, 0:01:05 from the start, in John Mulaney: New in Town
2. (dated, idiomatic) To waste or expend resources twice over; to be doubly profligate.
   • The dividends […] were divided from capital and not from profit—for, in truth, the concern never earned a penny in the sense in which the term profit is commonly employed. […] The pipe-making concern burned the candle at both ends, and burned it steadily; […]1866 May, “Large and Small Companies”, in The Bankers’ Magazine […], volume 26, pages 530–1
   • From what I hear, he's a regular dog; he's rolling in money; he's taking three mistresses and a cook along with him. All these great artists burn the candle at both ends; they require a dissolute life, that stirs the imagination to some extent.1886, Gustave Flaubert, chapter XIV, in Eleanor Marx-Aveling, transl., Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners […], London: Vizetelly & Co., […], →OCLC, part II, pages 241-242