While this thread may end up petering out, my logophile friend asked where this phrase came from. It wasn't in word detective, and while in world wide words, they really weren't sure of the origin. I wasn't able to find anything else on it.

Does anyone here know more?

Kalleh,
I can find nothing worthwhile.. I can't believe our testosterone enhanced friends on the Board haven't jumped all over this.. I'm not touching it with a 10 foot pole!

I'm tired...

Oh well, all right. When I was a little boy I heard the big boys talking about proposing a toast. It went something like this:

"Friends may come and friends may go and friends may peter out. But you, my friend, will be my friend, peter in OR peter out."

This post is likely to self-destruct without warning.

"peter out"
(Phrase Origins)

This expression meaning "to dwindle to nothing" is recorded from 1846, which precludes derivation "peter" in the sense "penis", an Americanism not attested until 1902. "To peter out" was apparently first used by American miners referring to exhausted veins of ore.
The origin is uncertain. It may come from "saltpetre" (used in the miners' explosives, so called because it forms a salt-like crust on rocks, ultimately from Greek _petra_ = "rock", whence we also get "petrify" and "petroleum"); or it may come from French _peter_, which literally means "to fart" but is used figuratively to mean "to fizzle" and in the phrase _peter dans la main_ = "to come to nothing" (this comes from the Indo-European root _*perd-/_*pzd-_, whence we get "fart", "feisty", "fizzle", "partridge", "pedicular", and "petard").



Source: [Mark Israel, 'Phrase Origins: "peter out"', The lt.usage.english FAQ file,(line 5174), (29 Sept 1997)]