As a verb, to exhaust means to make someone extremely tired or to use something up completely. As a noun, exhaust is the waste gas that comes out of an engine.
It comes from Latin 'exhaurire', meaning 'to draw out, drain', from 'ex-' (out) and 'haurire' (to draw, scoop). The sense of draining something dry became both using up energy and releasing used gases.
When you’re exhausted, you’re like an empty container—your energy has been poured out. Car exhaust is similar: it’s what’s left after the fuel’s energy has already been used up.
Language around being “exhausted” has sometimes been used to dismiss women’s reports of fatigue as personal weakness rather than the result of unequal labor burdens (paid and unpaid). Historically, women’s exhaustion from caregiving and domestic work has often been invisible or minimized.
Use “exhaust” and “exhausted” in ways that recognize structural causes of fatigue (workload, caregiving, discrimination) rather than implying individual failure. Avoid gendered assumptions about who is or isn’t expected to be exhausted by certain tasks.
["tire out","drain","use up","deplete"]
Women writers, activists, and researchers have documented the “second shift” and emotional labor that contribute to women’s exhaustion, making this labor more visible in public discourse.
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