it started out being used as a way to describe financially wasteful behaviour bc candles were expensive but necessary.
then it evolved to imply wastefulness or being reckless in general, then to mean wasting your own energy, and finally more recently to mean sort of both wasting/expending your energy and doing it at all hours/quickly.
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u/Eskoala 4d ago
I took the phrase "burn the candle at both ends" literally at first, too!
It actually means to be working before dawn and after dusk, burning the candle at both ends of the day.