| To burn out is an idiom meaning “to stop burning because
of lack of fuel”: The fire had burned out sometime during the night. Burnout
is the usual spelling of the noun, burn-out an infrequent variant:
it is the point at which a booster rocket has consumed all its fuel and is
dropped away from the next stage, or the point at which a jet engine stops
after burning all its fuel. Burnout is also a figurative term for
emotional exhaustion
stemming from overwork or other on-the-job strain, as in A newly recognized
educational problem is teacher burnout, and burned-out or burnt-out
is the adjective of this sense. |