English · Idiom Historical

to peter out

Preserved but no longer current.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To come gradually to an end, to give out. The phrase came from the Ameri- can mining camps of about '49, but its origin is not known.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Dần dần kết thúc, cạn kiệt

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)

Sources & notes

Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.

Topics: Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “to peter out” mean?

To come gradually to an end, to give out. The phrase came from the Ameri- can mining camps of about '49, but its origin is not known.

Is “to peter out” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

👁 Views 0 today 0 past 7 days 0 this month 0 all time