burn the candle at both ends

To overwork or exhaust oneself by doing too many things, especially both late at night and early in the morning. Oh, Denise is definitely burning the candle at both ends—she's been getting to the office early and staying very late to work on some big project.

Fig. to work very hard and stay up very late at night. (One end of the candle is work done in the daylight, and the other end is work done at night.) No wonder Mary is ill. She has been burning the candle at both ends for a long time. You'll wear out if you keep burning the candle at both ends.

Exhaust one's energies or resources by leading a hectic life. For example, Joseph's been burning the candle at both ends for weeks, working two jobs during the week and a third on weekends . This metaphor originated in France and was translated into English in Randle Cotgrave's Dictionary (1611), where it referred to dissipating one's wealth. It soon acquired its present broader meaning.

If you burn the candle at both ends, you try to do too much, regularly going to bed late and getting up early in the morning. Try not to exhaust yourself by burning the candle at both ends. Frank seemed to delight in burning the candle at both ends. No matter how late he stayed out, he was up at five o'clock the next morning to study.

To exhaust one’s energies or resources; to stay up late playing and rise early to work hard all day. This expression came into English in the seventeenth century from French (brusler la chandelle par les deux bouts) via Randle Cotgrave’s Dictionary (1611), which defined it as dissipating one’s material wealth. It soon acquired a more general meaning (“He consuming just like a candle on both ends, betwixt wine and women,” Richard Flecknoe, 1658) and appeared regularly enough so that Eric Partridge believed it was a cliché by the mid-eighteenth century. Though clichés usually are not the province of fine poetry, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “First Fig” (1920) used this one: “My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—It gives a lovely light.”

Extreme effort without time to rest. The phrase, which came originally from a French expression, came to mean working so hard that you burn yourself out. In addition, because candles were once an expensive item, to burn one at both ends implied wasting valuable resources to achieve an obsession. The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay used the image in her verse: My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—It gives a lovely light