Forms: 4 expleiten, 5 expleyt, explite, 5–7 exploite, -yte, 6– exploit. [ad. Fr. exploit-er = Pr. expleitar, explectar:—L. *explicitāre, freq. of explicāre: see EXPLICATE. Sense 4 is a recent adoption of the mod. vb.]
† 1. trans. To accomplish, achieve, execute, perform; to fight (a battle). Obs.
c. 1400. Rom. Rose, 6177. I dwelle with hem … That worship of this world coveiten, And grete nede kunnen expleiten.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems (Percy Soc.), 218. Massageres … T’expleyte the journe al tymes of the yeere.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 362/2. They knewe wel that they shold no thyng exployte of their entente.
c. 1500. Melusine, 81. I ordeyne the bataill to be to morow exploited.
1531. Elyot, Gov., I. xxvi. They departed without exploytinge their message.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron. (1806), I. 502. P. Turpilianus … sat still without exploiting anie notable enterprise.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xi. § 47. It is euident, that these tragedies against the Lords were exployted by others.
1674. Lond. Gaz., No. 882/4. We doubt not … but something considerable will be exploited by them.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Bergerac’s Com. Hist., I. 127. The first thing they exploited, was to distribute my Body among them into several Provinces.
1775. in Ash.
† b. To exploit out: to achieve the expulsion of.
c. 1525. Skelton, Sp. Parrot, 307. To exployte the man owte of the mone.
2. † a. refl. To apply, exert oneself. Cf. OFr. s’exploiter. Obs.
1490. Caxton, Eneydos, xxvi. 95. Why consumest thy self slepynge without exploityng the in thy vyage.
1530. Palsgr., 542/1. They exployted them so faste that within shorte space they came to their journayes ende.
† b. intr. To act with effect; to get on, prosper, speed. Also in impers. pass. Obs.
c. 1477. Caxton, Jason, 10 b. Peleus … not knowing how he might exploite for to attayne to execute his dampnable enuye. Ibid., 66. If I abode here I should not exployte but lose my tyme.
c. 1500. Melusine, 188. The knight … reherced to them how he had exployted.
1592. Wyrley, Armorie, 154. Some did to me vnfold … how at Arde Gomigines did hold, Exploiting well.
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., Epit. (1612), 384. During the minoritie of this King Richard … brauely was it exployted in Fraunce by his Agents.
† 3. trans. ? To cause to succeed, prosper. Obs.
c. 1430. Lydg., Lyfe our Ladye (Caxton), C v a. Let thy grace to me descende … My rude tunge to explite and spede.
4. To ‘work’ (a mine, etc.); to turn to industrial account (natural resources). b. transf. To utilize for one’s own ends, treat selfishly as mere workable material (persons, etc.); ‘to make capital out of.’
1838. New Monthly Mag., LIII. 306. The Humbughausens … have exploited the obscure (to use a French phrase where we have no proper equivalent) with … profit.
1847. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., II. 25. Exploiting that poor girl for their idle purposes of curiosity.
1865. E. Arnold, in Reader, No. 115. 282/1. In exploiting mineral resources.
1878. Print. Trades Jrnl., XXIII. 7. The great German naturalist … finds himself coolly exploited by a Paris publisher.
1888. Westm. Rev., July, 58. An association of capitalist shareholders, exploiting their wage-paid labourers.
1890. Nature, 6 Feb., 313/2. Those European exiles of various nationalities who were then, as pioneers, exploiting the riches of the East, with … indulgence in practices sometimes hardly less barbarous than those of the indigenous population.
5. intr. To conduct mining operations for.
1887. Pop. Sci. Monthly, April, XXX. 857/2. Some two years ago, M. Debay, a Belgian engineer, proposed to exploit for petroleum.
Hence Exploited, Exploiting ppl. a. and vbl. sb.
1883. Pall Mall Gaz., 28 Aug., 1/1. For him the Jews are a sort of lightning conductor, attracting to themselves alone the animosity which is deserved by the whole ‘exploiting’ class. Ibid. (1887), 20 Aug., 4/2. There is no such exploited class as trained nurses in fashionable ‘institutions’ working under distinguished medical men.
1887. T. Kirkup, Inq. Socialism, iii. 87. The domineering and exploiting spirit.
