expired

adjective

ex·​pired ik-ˈspī(-ə)rd 

ek-

1

formal : dead, deceased

—often used as a euphemistic or humorous alternative to dead

A shovel, bucket, trash bags, and gloves are also useful items for cleaning up expired wildlife.

—Jeffrey Price and Jeffrey Forrest

… I've exercised my maternal instincts on him, doing a far better job of keeping him alive than all those expired plants now in the great compost pile in the sky.

—Kerry Quinn

There, firmly lodged within the pipe and obstructing the flow of water, was a catfish. The expired creature was removed, brought on board, and mounted in the main passenger cabin for all to see.

—John Laurence Busch

2

: no longer valid : having exceeded its period of validity

expired licenses

an expired contract

… Mr. Adams uses homemade software to download online books with expired copyrights …

—Michael M. Phillips

3

: having passed its expiration date (see expiration date sense 2)

expired milk

expired drugs

… networks that now take us into the homes of people who treasure their expired tuna cans more than they do their children …

—Carina Chocano

4

: emitted as or in a person's breath : breathed out

… the person exhales into a container at regular intervals and technicians measure the amount of hydrogen in the expired air.

—Colleen Sauber

Synonyms

• bygone
• bypast
• dead
• defunct
• departed
• done
• extinct
• gone
• nonextant
• vanished

Examples of expired in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Others have shared their personal horror stories with expired milk. —Jimena Tavel, Miami Herald, 12 Apr. 2024

The men had been in Russia as migrant workers on either temporary or expired visas, authorities said. —Sebastian Shukla, CNN, 30 Mar. 2024

Code compliance will address the issue of the expired permits, Stringfellow said. —Cody Copeland, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4 Mar. 2024

Four suspects, who are from the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan but worked in Russia on temporary or expired visas, were detained later Friday night in Russia’s Bryansk region, near the border with Ukraine and Belarus. —Christian Edwards, CNN, 26 Mar. 2024

The Bad River Band filed a lawsuit against Enbridge in 2019, asking the company to remove the pipeline, which is operating on 12 miles of its land with an expired easement. —Caitlin Looby, Journal Sentinel, 14 Mar. 2024

Expand All When a Bonner Springs police officer began chasing a man in June 2021 for an expired license plate, speeds on Interstate 70 escalated to 100 mph. —Katie Moore, Kansas City Star, 25 Feb. 2024

More than 850 stores and 70,000 unionized grocery store workers were covered by the expired contracts, and 59,000 were on strike or locked out. —Helen Li, Los Angeles Times, 25 Aug. 2023

But the fact one of the passengers was an unauthorized immigrant with an expired U.S. residence permit triggered questions beyond the pot. —Peter Hecht, Sacramento Bee, 21 Feb. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1631, in the meaning defined at sense 1