Word.ws English Dictionary

expire

Syllables: ex·pire/ɪkˈspaɪə(ɹ)/

expire verb: to die.

Verb

expire (third-person singular simple present expires, present participle expiring, simple past and past participle expired)

  1. (intransitive) To die.
    • The patient expired in hospital.
    • And then, his head ſinking on his pillow, he expired; at about half an hour after ten.1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter CXIII”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume VII, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; [a]nd sold by John Osborn, […], →OCLC, page 415
    Synonyms:
    assume room temperature, auger in, be called home, be gathered to one's fathers, be like the the One, be no more, be with Jesus, be with the Lord, bite the big one, bite the biscuit
  2. (intransitive) To lapse and become invalid.
    • My library card will expire next week.
    Synonyms:
    run out
  3. (intransitive) To come to an end; to conclude.
    • And when the thousand yeeres are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, […]1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 20:7
  4. (ambitransitive) To exhale; to breathe out.
    • Anatomy exhibits the lungs in a continual motion of inspiring and expiring air.1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus, Or, The Anatomy of Consumptions
    • This chafed the boar; his nostrils flames expire.1717, John Dryden, Meleager and Atalanta
    Antonyms:
    inspire
  5. (transitive) To give forth insensibly or gently, as a fluid or vapour; to emit in minute particles.
    • the expiring of cold out of the inward parts of the earth in winter1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted...
  6. (transitive) To bring to a close; to terminate.
    • Expire the term / Of a despised life.c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  7. (transitive) To cause to lapse; to invalidate.
    • The site expires cached pages that are older than 24 hours.

expire meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

expire in Tamil

விடுமூச்சு, காலவதி

expire in Urdu

آخر ہونا, بیتنا, گزرنا, انتقال کرنا, مر جانا, پھونک نکل جانا

expire in Bengali

মেয়াদ শেষ হওয়া, উত্তীর্ণ হওয়া, শেষ নিশ্বাস ত্যাগ করা

expire in Telugu

to expire
చచ్చు caccu, గడుచు gaḍucu
More languagesFewer languages
expire in Malayalam
കാലഹരണപ്പെടുക, ഉപയോഗശൂന്യമാവുക, മരിക്കുക
expire in Kannada
ನಿಶ್ವಾಸ ಬಿಡು, ಉಸಿರುಬಿಡು, ಮಿಂಚು, ಮಿಂಚಿಹೋಗು
expire in Punjabi
ਮਿਆਦ ਪੁੱਗਣ ਲਈ
expire in Indonesian
kedaluwarsa
expire in Thai
หมดอายุ mòt-aa-yú, หมดเขต
expire in Vietnamese
hết hạn

Examples of expire in a sentence

  • I lived but in her, and will expire with her.1764 December 24 (indicated as 1765), Onuphrio Muralto, translated by William Marshal [pseudonyms; Horace Walpole], chapter V, in The...
  • People bled to death like gentlemen in an operating room or expired without comment in an oxygen tent.1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:
  • Animals expire carbon and plants inspire it; plants expire oxygen and animals inspire it.1843, Loring Dudley Chapin, (Please provide the book title or journal name):

All 26 example sentences with expire

Synonyms of expire

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of expire

Forms of expire

third-person singular presentexpires
present participleexpiring
past participleexpired
pastexpired
alternative form (obsolete)exspire

Past tense of expire: expired

Origin of expire

From Middle English expire, from Middle French expirer, from Latin expīrō, exspīrō, from ex- (“out”) + spīrō (“breathe, be alive”).

Words formed from expire

Words that rhyme with expire

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about expire

What does expire mean?
Expire means to die.
What is expire in Tamil?
Expire in Tamil is விடுமூச்சு, காலவதி. See Expire meaning in Tamil.
How do you use expire in a sentence?
I lived but in her, and will expire with her.
What part of speech is expire?
Expire is a verb.
How do you pronounce expire?
Expire is pronounced /ɪkˈspaɪə(ɹ)/.
What is the past tense of expire?
The past tense of expire is expired.

Words near expire in the dictionary

  1. expiration times
  2. expirational
  3. expirations
  4. expirative
  5. expiratory
  6. expire
  7. expired
  8. expiree
  9. expirees
  10. expirer
  11. expirers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: expire (page history and authors); expire (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); expire (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Expire (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); గడుచు (Telugu) (page history and authors); expire (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); expire (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); expire (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-expire.oga.

Cite this entry: “expire.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/expire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.