exIt

[Lat.=he (or she) goes out, 3d pers. sing. pr. indic. of exeo =to go out: ex =out, and eo = to go.] [EXEUNT.] 1. The term used in dramatic literature to mark the time when a player leaves the stage; a direction in a play for an actor to retire from the stage. "They have their exits and their entrances." Shakesp.: As You Like It, v. 1. 2. Departure (especially departure from this life); decease. "Sighs for his exit, vulgarly called death." Cowper: Hope, 90. 3. A pa age or pa ing out of any place. "In such a pervious substance as the brain, find an easy either entrance or exit almost everywhere." -Glanvill . 4. A pa age; the way by which a pa age or departure is made out of any place. "The landward exit of the cave." Tennyson: Sea Dreams, 94. In the last two meanings the word is directly from Lat. exit us =a going out, an outlet. Crabb thus discriminates between exit and departure: "Both these words are metaphorically employed for death, or a pa age out of this life: the former is borrowed from the act of going off the stage; the latter from the act of setting off on a journey. The exit seems to convey the idea of volition; for we speak of making our exit : the depar ture designates simply the event; the hour of a man's departure is not made known to him. When we speak of the exit , we think only of the place left; when we speak of departure , we think of the place gone to: the unbeliever may talk of his exit ; the Christian most commonly speaks of his departure ." (Crabb: Eng . Synon.) 2. To continue to have life or animation; to live; exitēlos going out, disappearing, fading; exienai as, Fishes cannot exist out of the water. 3. To continue to be. (1) Crabb thus discriminates between to exist and to live : " Existence is the property of all things in the universe; life , which is the inherent power of motion, is the particular property communicated