be burned out

1. To be overworked or exhausted, especially to the point of no longer being able to maintain a particular level of performance or dedication. If you keep working nights and weekends, you're going to be burned out sooner than later. She's probably burned out after studying all week. If you're so burned out, have you considered working at a different company?

2. slang To be physically damaged by drug use. Typically used to describe an IV drug user's veins. I used to be an addict, honey, so my veins are all burned out these days. A: "You can't draw the patient's blood?" B: "His veins are all burned out. What do I do?" I knew my veins were all burned out, and I still kept using—that's the power of addiction.

3. slang To be negatively impacted physically and psychologically by drug use or addiction. He once was a brilliant student with a promising future, but now he's so burned out from his addiction that he can't even hold down a steady job. Joel was totally burned out, but ever since rehab, he's been a completely different person. Is Ellie taking something? She seems really burned out, and you can barely have a conversation with her.

4. slang To have a physical tolerance (to a certain drug) and thus unable to feel its effects anymore. I'm totally burned out on that stuff, man—it just does nothing for me anymore. I was shocked to see how much he took. He's really burned out on it, huh? You're burned out on it, so you need to take more and more and more. That's exactly what the dealers want, man.

burned out, to be

Also, burn oneself out. Make or become tired of, particularly of one’s job or education. This figurative term alludes to a fire lacking fuel and therefore going out. It dates from the early 1800s. For example, “David was burned out; the law firm required 80 billing hours per week.” The noun burnout signifies the condition of being burned out. Graham Greene’s 1960 novel, A Burnt-Out Case, describes a protagonist afflicted with burnout.