discharge

Etymology

From Middle English dischargen, from Old French deschargier (“to unload”), from Late Latin discarricāre (“unload”). By surface analysis, dis- + charge.

verb

1. To accomplish or complete, as an obligation.
2. To free of a debt, claim, obligation, responsibility, accusation, etc.; to absolve; to acquit; to forgive; to clear.
3. To send away (a creditor) satisfied by payment; to pay one's debt or obligation to.
4. To set aside; to annul; to dismiss.
5. To expel or let go.
   Feeling in other cases discharges itself in indirect muscular actions. January 1, 1878, Herbert Spencer, Ceremonial Government, published in The Fortnightly Review No. 132
6. To let fly, as a missile; to shoot.
7. (electricity) To release (an accumulated charge).
8. To relieve of an office or employment; to send away from service; to dismiss.
   1. (medicine) To release (an inpatient) from hospital.
   2. (military) To release (a member of the armed forces) from service.
9. To release legally from confinement; to set at liberty.
   to discharge a prisoner
10. To operate (any weapon that fires a projectile, such as a shotgun or sling).
11. (logic) To release (an auxiliary assumption) from the list of assumptions used in arguments, and return to the main argument.
12. To unload a ship or another means of transport.
13. To put forth, or remove, as a charge or burden; to take out, as that with which anything is loaded or filled.
    to discharge a cargo
14. To give forth; to emit or send out.
    A pipe discharges water.
15. To let fly; to give expression to; to utter.
    He discharged a horrible oath.
16. (transitive, textiles) To bleach out or to remove or efface, as by a chemical process.
    to discharge the colour from a dyed fabric in order to form light figures on a dark background
17. (obsolete, Scotland) To prohibit; to forbid.

noun

1. The act of expelling or letting go.
   1. (medicine) The act of releasing an inpatient from hospital.
   2. (military) The act of releasing a member of the armed forces from service.
2. The act of firing a projectile, especially from a firearm.
3. The process of removing the load borne by something.
4. The process of flowing out.
   1. (medicine, uncountable) Pus or exudate or mucus (but in modern usage not exclusively blood) from a wound or orifice, usually due to pathological or hormonal changes.
5. (electricity) The act of releasing an accumulated charge.
6. (hydrology) The volume of water transported by a river in a certain amount of time, usually in units of m³/s (cubic meters per second).
7. The act of accomplishing (an obligation) or repaying a debt etc.; performance.
   She [the Queen] was assisted in the discharge of her solemn functions by fourteen sacred women, one for each of the altars of Dionysus. 1890, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 137