eject
Americanverb (used with object)
-
ejects,
present (3rd person singular)
-
ejected,
past participle, past
-
ejecting
present participle
-
to drive or force out; expel, as from a place or position.
The police ejected the hecklers from the meeting.
-
to dismiss, as from office or occupancy.
-
to evict, as from property.
- Synonyms:
- dispossess, oust
-
to throw out, as from within; throw off.
verb (used without object)
-
ejects,
present (3rd person singular)
-
ejected,
past participle, past
-
ejecting
present participle
verb
-
(tr) to drive or force out; expel or emit
-
(tr) to compel (a person) to leave; evict; dispossess
-
(tr) to dismiss, as from office
-
(intr) to leave an aircraft rapidly, using an ejection seat or capsule
-
(tr) psychiatry to attribute (one's own motivations and characteristics) to others
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
ejectsimple
-
ejectssimple
-
have ejectedperfect
-
has ejectedperfect
-
am ejectingprogressive
-
are ejectingprogressive
-
is ejectingprogressive
-
have been ejectingperfect progressive
-
has been ejectingperfect progressive
Past
-
ejectedsimple
-
had ejectedperfect
-
was ejectingprogressive
-
were ejectingprogressive
-
had been ejectingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of eject
First recorded in 1545–55; from Latin ējectus “thrown out” (past participle of ējicere ), equivalent to ē- + jec- (combining form of jacere ) “to throw” + -tus past participle suffix; see e- 1
Explanation
It’s good to eject yourself from a burning spaceship (if you happen to have an escape pod and a nice small planet to land on), but if a teacher ejects you from class, well that’s not so good. Eject comes from “jectere,” the Latin word meaning throw, but the “e” means out. If you want to say, “throw the rascals out!” in only one word, you should choose, “eject!” The opposite of eject is inject. Thinking about the nurse throwing the measles vaccine into your arm makes that doctor’s visit seem a little less friendly.
Vocabulary lists containing eject
"There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury (1950)
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Latin Love, Vol II: iacere
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Roots: ject
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A US F-35 fighter jet crashed Friday near a military base in San Diego, but the pilot was able to eject before impact, officials said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026
The pilot, the only person on board the aircraft, managed to eject from the jet before the crash, said Marine Corps spokesperson Capt. Jacob Sugg.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
The side effects from a big increase in air conditioning are considered to be large: The devices are costly; they are energy hungry; and they eject hot air into the street, warming cities even more.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
They use electric fields to charge particles in a liquid propellant and then eject those particles into space, creating thrust.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 10, 2026
Supernovae violently eject much of their stellar mass into space.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
"Our catalyst works a bit differently because it actually just ejects the electron directly into solvent," says Zachary Wickens, a professor in the UW-Madison Department of Chemistry who led the work.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 2026
Spivey's .45 caliber, like most firearms, ejects casingsbehind and to the right.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 21, 2025
The search may have been hampered by the plane's anti-radar stealth capabilities and technology that wipes the jet's communications system if a pilot ejects.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2023
The sun has 11-year-long sunspot cycles, during which the level of ferocity in its magnetic fields grows and the sun ejects increasingly larger pieces of its atmosphere.
From New York Times ● Feb. 27, 2023
He stops fights, ejects drunks, soothes hysteria, cures headaches, and tends bar.
From "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck
“They were ejected from it, thrown clear down the road.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
She picked up the nickname after nearly tackling an opponent, which saw her ejected from the game.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
The foul was upgraded to a flagrant two foul after review and Carrington was automatically ejected from the match after scoring eight points in four minutes from the bench.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026
"The pilot was ejected and has been recovered."
From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026
The scuffling weakened, the scraping stopped, a last pathetic squeak—like a miniature champagne cork—was ejected into the darkness.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
At La Albufera National Park, a protected coastal wetland covering 21,000 hectares south of Valencia, officials have spent the past week turning away or ejecting unauthorized onlookers attempting to enter restricted areas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
The rescue operation reportedly included an A-10 Warthog aircraft which was hit over the Gulf, with its pilot ejecting before being rescued.
From BBC ● Apr. 5, 2026
But when he didn’t, third base umpire Tripp Gibson did the honors of ejecting him from the game.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2025
He travelled eighteen miles but only after ejecting every loose object from the balloon to enable it to launch.
From Salon ● Nov. 3, 2024
The blast also created radioactive atoms—atoms with unstable nuclei that break apart, ejecting particles and rays as they decay.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
