inexhaustible

Etymology

It is formed from English in- + exhaustible.^[2][3][4] Etymonline thinks it was perhaps modelled on Old French inexhaustible,^[4] recorded in the 15th and 16th centuries,^[2] and Barnhart gives the French word as the first possibility.^[5] Dictionary.com derives it instead from Latin inexhaustus (“not exhausted”) and -ible.^[6] The OED's first record of exhaustible (1668) is later than this word's.^[2] Exhaust is from exhaustus, the past participle of exhauriō (“to draw off, use up”), from ex- (“off”) and hauriō (“to draw up”).^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a vessel or receptacle, unable to be emptied: 1601, in Robert Johnson's translation of Botero's Travellers Breviat.^[2][7] Etymonline dates the word to about 1600.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The more general sense, unable to be used up or spent, appears in John Donne's sermons before 1631.^[2][5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "not to be drawn all away; not to be spent", quoting Locke on the stock of numbers.^[8] From the 18th century it was also used of people and their qualities, unable to be worn out: Gibbon's journal of 1762 is the first record.^[2][3] The adverb inexhaustibly dates from the late 17th century, and inexhaustibility from the middle of the 19th.^[3]

Timeline

• 1601 – of a vessel, unable to be emptied.^[2][7]
• before 1631 – unable to be used up or spent.^[2][5]
• 1762 – of a person or quality, unable to be worn out.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Impossible to use up; unfailing or endless: an inexhaustible supply of jokes.^[9][7][2]
2. Impossible to tire; tireless: a teacher of inexhaustible energy.^[9][7][2]
3. Of a vessel or receptacle, impossible to empty.^[2][3]

Word family

• inexhaustibility
• inexhaustibly
• inexhaustibleness

Related words

• exhaust
• exhaustible
• exhaustless

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins