Verglühen

Verglühen is a German verb that describes the process of burning away or fading out as if consumed by flame. It can refer to a physical flame that exhausts itself, a celestial body that burns out, or a person or thing that loses vitality, energy, or color until extinction or disappearance. The term often conveys a gradual, sometimes poetic sense of ending.

Etymology and usage: The verb is formed from glühen, meaning to glow, with the prefix ver-, which in many German verbs signals completion, culmination, or deterioration. Verglühen is predominantly found in literary or formal prose and is used for both concrete phenomena (for example, embers or a flame) and abstract or figurative endings (such as fading youth or waning enthusiasm).

Typical contexts and nuances: In a physical sense, one might speak of a candle or a fire that verglüht. In astronomy, stars may be described as verglühend or verglüht when they cease to emit light. Figuratively, the expression appears in poetry and narrative to evoke decline, exhaustion, or tragic endings, often with a somber or reflective tone. It can be contrasted with erlöschen, which simply means to go out or extinguish, whereas verglühen emphasizes the process of fading away through burning or glowing to extinction.

Related terms: erlöschen (to go out), vergehen (to pass away, to vanish), verfallen (to decay, to fall into disrepair). Verglühen thus occupies a niche similar to but more literary than these terms, focusing on a light-based or vitality-based dissolution.