Discharging

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Releasing or letting out something such as a liquid, gas, or electric charge ; freeing someone from a responsibility or debt ; formally removing someone from a job or position
2. Allowing a substance or energy to flow out ; canceling or ending a commitment or duty ; terminating a person's employment or military service
3. Emitting something from a container or source ; relieving a person of an obligation or condition ; officially dismissing an individual from a role or service

Etymology: "Discharging" is the present participle of "discharge," which comes from Old French "descharger," meaning "to unload" a cargo or burden. That French verb combined "des-" (a prefix meaning "away" or "reversal") with "charger," to load, itself from Late Latin "carricare," to load onto a cart, linked to Latin "carrus" (wagon). So the core sense is removing a load, and every later meaning grows from that picture. English borrowed the word in the late 1300s, and its sense of unloading a ship or wagon came first. The electrical sense appeared in the 1700s, when experimenters used "discharge" for releasing stored electricity from a charged object, and the military and employment senses (releasing a soldier or worker from service) followed the same logic of lifting a burden off someone. The idea of a gun "discharged" by firing, and of a debt or duty "discharged" by paying it off, both express the same act of lightening a load.

Synonyms: releasing, expelling, emitting, depleting, dismissing

Antonyms: charging, filling, loading, accumulating, enriching