Meaning of spent force | Babel Free

Definitions

A person, organization, or process which is no longer influential, effective, or robust.

Examples

“Evolution was not a spent force, but one still working.”

“1921, P. G. Wodehouse, The Girl on the Boat (U.S.: Three Men and a Maid), ch. 2, I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a future!”

““You remember those powerful end-of-term addresses he used to make to us? Well, he couldn't have made them if he hadn't had the stuff all typed out in his grasp, so that he could read it. Without his notes, as he calls them, he's a spent force.” [...] In stating that the Woosters never give up, I was in error. These words caught me amidships and took all the fighting spirit out of me, leaving me a spent force.”

“Bush already appeared to be a spent force, an unpopular President eking out his final days of power.”

CEFR level