[f. EXPIRE v. + -Y.]
1. Dying, death; = EXPIRATION 4. Also fig. of an immaterial thing: Destruction, extinction. rare.
c. 1790. Burns, Lett. to Grose, Wks. 1856, III. 152. About the time nature puts on her sables to mourn the expiry of the cheerful day.
1803. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., I. 260. Ancient history ought … not to cease with the expiry of the Roman empire.
1855. Bailey, Mystic, 131. But, on expiry, the rebellious soul Shall other bodies enter.
1864. Pusey, Daniel, ii. 62. Men had witnessed … the inherent vitality of the Gospel. They predicted the date of its expiry.
2. Close, termination, end; = EXPIRATION 5.
a. of a period of time.
1752. J. Louthian, Form of Process (ed. 2), 272. No Decreet shall be extracted till after the Expiry of six free Days.
1862. Smiles, Engineers, II. 108. A lease … renewable at the expiry of that term.
1877. Black, Green Past., II. xv. 220. At the expiry of her year of banishment.
b. of anything that lasts a certain time, as a contract, truce, etc. Expiry of the Legal (see quot. 1861).
1807. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., V. 562. [He] left the situation … before the expiry of his indentures.
1828–40. Tytler, Hist. Scot. (1864), I. 227. The truce was now within a single year of its expiry.
a. 1847. Chalmers, Posth. Wks., I. 100. Previous to the expiry of the famine.
1861. W. Bell, Dict. Law Scot., s.v., Expiry of the Legal; is the expiration of the period within which the subject of an adjudication may be redeemed, on payment of the debt adjudged for.
1863. Smiles, Indust. Biog., 218. On the expiry of this contract the Government determined to establish works of their own.
1868. Rogers, in Adam Smith’s W. N., Pref. I. 9. He returned [to Scotland] at the expiry of his exhibition [at Oxford].
