[f. as prec. + -ING2.] That expires (in senses of verb).
1. That breathes out air from the lungs, etc.
2. Of a person or animal: That is in the act of breathing his or its last; dying; often applied metonymically (like ‘dying’) to the breath, words, etc., of a person expiring. Of a flame, etc.: That is dying out, becoming extinguished.
1634. Habington, Castara (Arb.), 104. My name … even thy expiring breath Did call upon.
1683. T. Hoy, Agathocles, 3. Left in danger of th’ expireing Light.
1746–7. Hervey, Medit. (1818), 194. The last accents which quiver on your pale, expiring lips.
1822. Bp. Heber, in Bp. Taylor’s Wks. (1839), I. cxxxv. A few expiring lamentations … were to expiate for many years of obstinate transgression.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., viii. An expiring candle shone before his eyes.
1870. Disraeli, Lothair, I. xxviii. 245. It frantically moved its expiring wings, scaled the paling, and died.
fig. 1660. Milton, Free Commw., Wks. 1851, V. 453. The last words of our expiring Liberty.
1696. Tate & Brady, Ps. cxiii. 9. To rescue their exspiring Fame.
1776. Gibbon, Decl. & F., I. 328. The expiring senate … blazed for a moment, and was extinguished for ever.
1849. Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, iii. § 20. 87. Like bubbles in expiring foam.
1862. Stanley, Jew. Ch. (1877), I. viii. 154. It was the last expiring effort of the old traditions.
3. Of a period of time: That comes to an end; that is in the act of coming to an end.
1609. Tourneur, Fun. Poem, 14. Nor can Death or Fate Confine his fame to an expiring date.
1665. J. Spencer, Prophecies, 112. Stiled the last daies, being the expiring times of the Jewish Oeconomie.
1705. J. Logan, in Pa. Hist. Soc. Mem., X. 46. The expiring year will by that time show what has been done.
1823. Byron, Age of Bronze, xiv. The impatient hope of the expiring lease.
Hence Expiringly adv., like a thing expiring; as if dying away.
1835. New Monthly Mag., XLIII. 167. The tones were so expiringly soft and low.
