fade out

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fade out

1. verb To vanish gradually from view or audibility. And then we'll fade out, and the credits will start to roll. Once their song started to fade out, I burst into tears. What a sweet homage to their 20-year love story! I want to fade out on the shot of the happy family having a meal together.
2. verb To cause something to vanish gradually from view or audibility. In this usage, a noun or pronoun is used between "fade" and "out." Fade that scene out and then roll the credits. Hey, ask the sound engineer if he can fade the sax out at this point in the song. Please fade the song out so it doesn't end so abruptly.
3. noun The act of slowly ceasing to be seen or heard. When used as a noun, the phrase is usually written as one word. The fadeout on that song needs to be less abrupt. Can we add a fadeout on the sax? That transition between those scenes was totally jarring. Can we improve the fadeout please?
See also: fade, out
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

fade something out

to diminish something altogether. (Broadcasting.) At the end, you should fade the music out completely. Fade out the music earlier.
See also: fade, out

fade out

 and fade away
to diminish and go away altogether. The light in the distance faded out as the sun began to set. The light faded out as the candles burned themselves out, one by one. As it got farther into the distance, the car faded away.
See also: fade, out
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

fade out

1. Gradually disappear or become inaudible; also, cause to disappear or become inaudible gradually. For example, He let the final chord fade out completely before he played the next movement. The antonym is fade in, "to appear gradually or become audible," as in The images on the screen faded in until they could be seen clearly. These terms originated in the motion-picture and broadcasting industries, where they apply to images and sounds. [c. 1915]
2. Also, fade away. Quietly depart, as in "Florence Scape, Fanny Scape and their mother faded away to Boulogne" (William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1848). [Mid-1800s]
See also: fade, out
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

fade out

v.
1. To disappear gradually: The final scene of the movie faded out.
2. To cause something, especially a sound or a cinematic or television image, to disappear gradually: The technician will fade out the lights when the speaker gets off the stage. I faded the spotlight out at the end of the act.
See also: fade, out
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive ?
The giant lock insisted France's fadeouts at the hands of Wales and England will have no bearing on this Saturday's game.
It certainly wasn't a collapse of the proportions against Cork and Clare but fadeouts remain the team's Achilles heel ahead of a second successive All-Ireland semi-final on August 16.
While a number of different stresses may contribute to local bleaching episodes, most marine biologists now think high water temperatures led to the mass fadeouts of 1987 and this year.
Scientists first documented this year's bleaching in late July, noting fadeouts near Florida's Looe Key and the Cayman Islands of the Caribbean.
11 subcommittee hearing, Hayes, Williams and other reef researchers offered their assessments of the situation and ventured the disturbing prediction that the current coral fadeout may signify the beginning of the expected global greenhouse warming.
Williams used his model to predict the latest mass fadeout months in advance.