fade-out
noun
a gradual decrease in the visibility of a scene.
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fade-out
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fade out
fade out
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]
fade-out
American
[feyd-out]
/ ˈfeɪdˌaʊt /
noun
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fade-outs
plural
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Movies, Television. a gradual decrease in the visibility of a scene.
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Broadcasting, Recording. a gradual decrease in the volume of sound, especially of recorded or broadcast music, dialogue, or the like, usually ending in complete inaudibility.
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a gradual disappearance or reduction.
the fade-out of a brilliant career.
fade-out
British
noun
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films an optical effect in which a shot slowly disappears into darkness
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a gradual reduction in signal strength in a radio or television broadcast
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a gradual and temporary loss of a received radio or television signal due to atmospheric disturbances, magnetic storms, etc
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a slow or gradual disappearance
verb
fade out
Idioms
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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]
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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]
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of fade-out
First recorded in 1915–20; noun use of verb phrase fade out
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:
But that also marks a clear transformation in culinary programming from emphasizing the development of proficiency to encouraging consumption, and the fade-out of the shared cultural exploration Food Network once chaperoned.
From Salon ● Jan. 30, 2026
There is a sense of resignation or fade-out in the script’s formation, as if the word were not worth completing, the gods having long since departed.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 14, 2023
Just to keep things off- balance, every now and then the band adds an extra beat, while a long, gradual fade-out suggests she’s still a little reluctant to move on.
From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2022
I’m sad to say this might have been an old-fashioned friend fade-out.
From Slate ● Jun. 10, 2021
Hound had turned, clenching him in its metal-plier jaws, and trotted off in darkness, while the camera remained stationary, watching the creature dwindle in the distance—a splendid fade-out!
From "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
But rather than fade out toward the end, the song springs into a spirited calypso capped by a flugelhorn solo by Chuck Findley.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026
When things fade out of the headlines, like Ayo was saying, it is tempting to believe that something has been solved.
From Salon ● Oct. 17, 2025
The music didn’t so much stop for the line as fade out: the leg to Leeds was winnowed away and lost finally in 2021.
From BBC ● Sep. 16, 2024
In that case, you don’t see that fade out in the early years of school.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 26, 2023
Their faces float in front of him, then fade out, and enter again, first one, then the other, and then the three of them together.
From "The Boy Who Dared" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
In the old days, writers fashioned scripts to accommodate ads with scene breaks and fade-outs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2025
And, unlike the fade-outs that punctuate the movie like chapter breaks, they unproductively disrupt the flow.
From New York Times ● May 12, 2022
He also wanted the ballad to swell into a riff and the fade-out to end all fade-outs.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 21, 2018
In addition to the tremendous acting, Assayas’s direction has a novel feel, with clever fade-outs reminiscent of theater, which happen just when some bit of action is about to take place.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 16, 2015
There is unquestionably a correlation between sunspots and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field ... radio fade-outs ... auroras ... things like that.
From Disturbing Sun by Robert S. (Robert Shirley) Richardson
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.
