Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US Und.) to be arrested as a result of a tip-off or an informer.

1821

‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 387: If the first inhabitants are really induced to quit, the house is quickly occupied by similar game, and the circumstance of the burning out, as it is termed, serves as a direction-post to new visitors.

2. (also burn up) vi, to become mentally or physically exhausted.

1927		(con. 1917–18) J.M. Saunders Wings (1928) 190: Powell was burning himself up, they all agreed. He was having almost daily combats.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 180: He wouldn’t be running after young girls when he was fifty, he would have burned out by then.
1976		J.W. Dean III Blind Ambition 49: [B]urning himself out working briefly for Henry Kissinger.
1986		S. King It (1987) 136: You’ll burn out on sex and booze.
1999		Indep. 26 June 10: I would get out of bed almost every night and write an idea down. I burnt myself out.
2000		Guardian Rev. 3 Mar. 13: Their fellow 70s hellraisers burned out, burned up or turned into poodle-permed softies.
2015		Guardian 12 Sept. 🌐 The Londonwide Local Medical Committee says GPs are ‘burned out’ due to an increase in demand and cuts.

3. vtr. to exhaust, mentally or physically.

1950

R. Starnes Another Mug for the Bier 125: ‘She burned out her gentlemen friends very fast, I have heard’.

4. to die, from over-work, exhaustion.

1955

Picture Post 15 Jan. 42: Jacques Fath was a human dynamo. In a few short years he designed and charmed his way to the top of the world of fashion. Then, last November, at 42, he burnt himself out.

5. (US) to suffer a setback or failure.

1969

N. Cohn Awopbop. (1970) 102: By the time that any fad burned out, the Beach Boys were inevitably long long gone.

6. to become bored.

1967

M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 312: He’ll burn out on the little bitch [...] and pass her on to you.

7. to use up or exhaust a source for stolen goods.

1967

S. Fiddle Portraits from a Shooting Gallery in Lingeman (1969) n.p.: If he [the addict] is a booster [thief] he will recognize the fact that he can ‘burn out’ a certain department store. He will therefore respect the store detectives and move from place to place as the days passed.

8. (US campus) to do well.

1967–8

Baker et al. CUSS.

9. to stop or give up suddenly.

1998

Hip-Hop Connection Dec. 19: Why one of hip-hop’s greatest names have [sic] chosen to burn out rather than fade away.