discharge

Everyday

1. (verb) To let someone leave officially, for example a patient from hospital or a soldier from the army. tree →
2. (verb) To let out a liquid, gas or electricity: The pipe discharges water into the river. tree →
3. (verb, formal) To do a duty fully: She discharged her duties well. tree →
4. (verb) To fire a gun. tree →
5. (noun) The act of letting someone go or letting something out. tree →
6. (noun) Liquid that comes out of something, such as from a cut or the nose. tree →

In the lessons

In science a battery discharges when it loses its stored electricity, and lightning is an electric discharge; in health lessons patients are discharged from hospital; in the exam voice «discharge a duty» means to carry it out. Phrases: «be discharged from hospital», «discharge a battery», «electric discharge», «discharge into the sea».

Examples

• Grandad was discharged from hospital after two days. tree →
• The factory must not discharge waste into the river. tree →
• A phone battery discharges as you use it. tree →
• Lightning is a huge electric discharge. tree →
• The officer discharged his duties with care. tree →
• The doctor looked at the discharge from the cut. tree →
• The soldier got his discharge from the army. tree →
• If a tank discharges 5 litres a minute, it loses 50 litres in 10 minutes. tree →
• The true fabulist, therefore, discharges a most important function. tree →

Note

Stress: verb «dis-CHARGE», noun often «DIS-charge». The opposite of «charge» for batteries. «Discharge» from a job can mean being dismissed. In maths, «discharges 5 litres a minute» is a rate of loss: subtract, and multiply by the minutes.

In Jewish tradition

In Ecclesiastes it means release or relief from duty. Here it means to free oneself from a burden or obligation, and a release from service.

Interpretation. Ecclesiastes says no one can escape death, and that no soldier gets a release from war. The one who fears God finds a way through all of life's demands.

Examples

• It is good that thou shouldest take hold of the one; yea, also from the other withdraw not thy hand; for he that feareth God shall discharge himself of them all. (Writings ECC.7.18, JPS 1917) tree →
• There is no man that hath power over the wind to retain the wind; neither hath he power over the day of death; and there is no discharge in war; neither shall wickedness deliver him that is given to it. (Writings ECC.8.8, JPS 1917) tree →

Note

Stress: verb «dis-CHARGE», noun often «DIS-charge». The opposite of «charge» for batteries. «Discharge» from a job can mean being dismissed. In maths, «discharges 5 litres a minute» is a rate of loss: subtract, and multiply by the minutes.