Depletion

//dɪˈpliːʃən// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of depleting, or the state of being depleted; exhaustion. countable, uncountable

    "The Great Northern 4-4-0s have all vanished, and there has been some depletion in the ranks of North British "Glens" and "Scotts.""

  2. 2
    the act of decreasing something markedly wordnet
  3. 3
    The consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    the state of being depleted wordnet
  5. 5
    The act of relieving congestion or plethora, by purging, blood-letting, or reduction of the system by abstinence. archaic, countable, uncountable
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  1. 6
    gradual expense or use of natural resources over time. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
ablationabsorptionassimilationattritionburning upcleaning out

Example

More examples

"The current ozone hole area is still large compared to the 1980s, when the depletion of the ozone layer above Antarctica was first detected. This is because levels of ozone-depleting substances like chlorine and bromine remain high enough to produce significant ozone loss."

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin depletio, depletionem, from depleō.

Related phrases

oxygen depletionstimulated emission depletion microscopestimulated emission depletion microscopy

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.