Peter out

What started as a great effort ended up petering out to nothing.

Q. Do you think, Doctor, that it is possible for that south strand to likewise peter out and disappear?

But the luck had failed, the mines petered out; and the army of miners had departed, and left this quarter of the world to the rattlesnakes and deer and grizzlies, and to the slower but steadier advance of husbandry.

Seal the area off. Let them burn down the town, kill each other off, and it will peter out after a while.

I shall therefore suggest that the ongoing speaker deliberately allows her/his turn to peter out in the hope that someone else will take up the initiative.

The remaining 25% of air that lies more than 10km above ground becomes ever more tenuous until it finally peters out some 150km above our heads.

Soon, the overhead wires will reach here. My only hope is that common sense prevails, and that the overhead line equipment continues its march north rather than petering out, leaving a monument to short-term thinking and a lack of vision.