{
  "id": "maxed-out.threshold",
  "term": "maxed out",
  "sense": "threshold",
  "pos": "adjective",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 19,
  "arena": "everyday",
  "domain": "capacity and burnout",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A parameter has reached the wall of its capacity, where no further increase can be sustained and maintenance can no longer hold the system inside its window.",
  "folk_gloss": "No more room or ability to handle anything additional.",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "capacity.size",
      "wall.range-end",
      "maintenance.upkeep",
      "window.range"
    ],
    "interaction": "none",
    "novel_properties": [
      "burnout.capacity"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The 2021 Facebook outage occurred when BGP routes hit router memory limits, collapsing global access.",
      "domain": "computing"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Aral Sea shrank by 90% after Soviet irrigation diverted river inflows past ecosystem thresholds.",
      "domain": "environment"
    },
    {
      "text": "In 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed when collateral calls exceeded its liquid capital capacity.",
      "domain": "economics"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "max out",
    "maxed out"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — capacity and burnout"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-maxed-out.threshold"
}