Nuclear engineering

One adjective on this list leads a double life. In a reactor report abgebrannte Brennelemente are spent fuel assemblies: the fuel has given up most of the energy it can give, and it is lifted out into das Abklingbecken to cool. Nothing has burnt in any ordinary sense; the word borrows the image of a fire that has run its course. In the pub the same participle is an idiom about money. Ich bin völlig abgebrannt means I am skint, with nothing left until payday, and it is said with a shrug rather than as a complaint about health. An English speaker who reaches for it to mean burnt out has picked the wrong prefix: exhaustion is ausgebrannt, as in das Burn-out. So ab- is what is used up, aus- is who is worn out, and a spent fuel rod is never tired.