Burnout
Etymology
An English compound, “burn” plus “out,” drawn from the image of a fire or candle consuming its fuel until nothing is left, and of an electrical part failing under strain. The psychologist Herbert Freudenberger gave it its modern clinical meaning in 1974, watching dedicated caregivers gradually hollow out. The metaphor is exact: something once bright, spent to ash.
noun · /BURN-owt/
A state of physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced effectiveness caused by prolonged, unrelenting stress — most often from work.
What it names
The specific collapse that follows chronic overload — not ordinary tiredness but a deeper depletion, where a person who once cared deeply goes numb and empty.
Example
After two years of eighty-hour weeks she hit burnout — she could not answer another email without feeling physically sick.
Related idea
Burnout is exhaustion produced by chronic stress and often lifts when the load does; clinical depression is a mood disorder that persists even when circumstances ease. They overlap and can feed each other, but only one is reliably cured by a long enough rest.