Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To consume or reduce to a very low amount; use up.
- transitive verb To remove the contents or important elements of; empty out or exhaust.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To empty, reduce, or exhaust by drawing away, as the strength, vital powers, resources, etc.: as, to
deplete a country of inhabitants. - In medicine, to empty or unload, as overcharged vessels, by bloodletting, purgatives, or other means.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb (Med.) To empty or unload, as the vessels of human system, by bloodletting or by medicine.
- transitive verb To reduce by destroying or consuming the vital powers of; to exhaust, as a country of its strength or resources, a treasury of money, etc.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To empty or unload, as the vessels of the human system, by bloodletting or by medicine.
- verb To reduce by destroying or consuming the vital powers of; to exhaust, as a country of its strength or resources, a treasury of money, etc.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb use up (resources or materials)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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She agreed with the Tax suspension as an immediate relief but she also had a follow up plan to replace the money it would deplete from the Roads fund and you completely ignored that?
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Mr. Casey complains about many in his generation not being able to find jobs, that "the prospects for intergenerational mobility are fading fast," that they will be burdened with Social Security and Medicare payments for baby boomers, and that baby boomers will "deplete" the wealth of Gen Y.
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Steve Patterson of Urban Review - St. Louis posted an entry recently about that city's '70s plan to "deplete" much of the older sections of northern St. Louis.
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Steve Patterson of Urban Review - St. Louis posted an entry recently about that city's '70s plan to "deplete" much of the older sections of northern St. Louis.
Planned shrinkage: The Do Not Resucitate approach to urban revitalization - BatesLine 2006
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ONGC, India's largest oil explorer by output, is seeing oil production stagnate at its aging oilfields in the country as reserves deplete.
ONGC May Not Get Exxon Angola Stake Eric Yep 2011
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They suggested that the abundant deer might eventually deplete the plateau of edible vegetation, but neither the Forest Service nor the Park Service took any corrective action for a number of reasons.
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Additionally, bacteria feeding on the bloated fish corpses could multiply and further deplete the oxygen.
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They suggested that the abundant deer might eventually deplete the plateau of edible vegetation, but neither the Forest Service nor the Park Service took any corrective action for a number of reasons.
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The inventory-to-sales ratio, which measures how many months it would take for a firm to deplete its current inventory, fell to 1.13 from 1.15 in December.
Wholesale Inventories Rise Jeff Bater 2011
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The European traveller from the States, who is not a Croesus, speedily finds himself reduced to a chronic state of self-conscious sordidness by the hordes of cringing robbers who clutter his steps from dawn till dark, and deplete his pocket-book in a way that puts compound interest to the blush.
THE DESCENT 2010
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