Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To breathe out.
  • intransitive verb To emit air or vapor.
  • intransitive verb To be given off or emitted.
  • intransitive verb To blow (something) forth or breathe (something) out.
  • intransitive verb To give off; emit.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To hale or drag out.
  • To draw, as a sword.
  • To send out as breath or as if by breathing; emit an effluence of; give out as vapor, either perceptible or imperceptible: as, marshes exhale noxious effluvia.
  • To draw out as an effluence; cause to be sent out or emitted in vapor; evaporate: as, the sun exhales the moisture of the earth.
  • To draw forth; cause to flow, as blood.
  • To rise or pass off as an effluence; go off in vapor.
  • To pass through in the form of drops; ooze: noting especially bleeding from a surface in the absence of any wound.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To breathe out. Hence: To emit, as vapor; to send out, as an odor; to evaporate
  • transitive verb To draw out; to cause to be emitted in vapor.
  • intransitive verb To rise or be given off, as vapor; to pass off, or vanish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To expel air from the lungs through the nose or mouth by action of the diaphragm.
  • verb intransitive To pass off in the form of vapour; to emerge.
  • verb transitive To expel (something) from the lungs by action of the diaphragm.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb give out (breath or an odor)
  • verb expel air

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English exalen, from Latin exhālāre : ex-, ex- + hālāre, to breathe.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French exhaler, from Latin exhalare, from ex ("out") + halare ("to breathe").

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