exhale

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English exalen,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Old French exhaler,^{[6][7][8][9][10]} and directly borrowed from Latin exhālō (“to breathe out, evaporate”),^{[6][2][4][5][11]} from ex- (“out”) and hālō (“to breathe”).^[6][2][9][8] Barnhart calls the French verb Middle French.^[3] Etymonline, following de Vaan, traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁-slo- (“a breathing”), with cognates in Old Irish anaid (“to wait, remain”) and Gothic 𐌿𐌶𐌰𐌽𐌰𐌽 (uzanan, “to breathe out”);^[6] Klein and Merriam-Webster connect it with anima (“breath”) and animus.^[10][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of vapour or perfume, to pass off into the air; of a liquid, to evaporate: about 1400, in the Middle English translation of Lanfranc's surgery, which also used it of body fluids passing through a membrane.^[9] Etymonline describes the earliest use as transitive, of liquids, perfumes or the breath of life,^[6] and Barnhart glosses exalen, before 1400, as to emit vapour or perfume.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word began as a term for vapours and evaporation, and the sense "breathe out" came only in the 16th century.^[8][7] In 1589 it was used of drawing up something as vapour (Nashe) and of breathing out life, the soul or words (Greene).^[9] Johnson (1755) gave "to send or draw out in vapours or fumes" first, quoting the meteor that the sun exhales in Romeo and Juliet.^[12] From 1745 it could mean to blow off one's anger or enthusiasm.^[9] The plain intransitive sense, to breathe out as opposed to inhale, is recorded by Etymonline from 1837^[6] and by the OED from 1880, in Tyndall;^[9] inhale itself was formed in 1725 as the opposite of exhale.^[6] The noun exhalation is older than the verb, recorded before 1393 in Gower.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – of vapour, to pass off into the air; of body fluids, to pass through a membrane.^[9]
• 1580s – to breathe out.^[6][9]
• 1589 – to draw up as vapour.^[9]
• 1745 – to blow off anger or enthusiasm.^[9]
• 1837 – intransitive, to breathe out.^[6] The OED's first record is from 1880.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To breathe out air, smoke and the like from the lungs: He exhaled slowly and opened his eyes.^[11][5][9]
2. To give off gas, vapour or a smell: The wet earth exhaled a scent of moss.^[11][5][9]
3. Of a gas or vapour, to rise or be given off.^[11][5][9]

Word family

• unexhaled
• exhalation

Related words

• inhalation
• inhale
• inhaler
• halitosis
• animate
• animus

Usage notes

A separate verb exhale, formed from ex- and hale "to draw", meant to drag or draw out, as a sword from its scabbard, or to make blood or tears flow;^[9][13] Shakespeare used it, and it was obsolete by the mid-17th century.^[9][13][5]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press