extinct
Valid in Scrabble
- Scrabble points
- 16
- Words With Friends
- 18
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- 7
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Definition of extinct
14 senses · 3 parts of speech · etymology included
adj
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(archaic, not-comparable)Of fire, etc.: no longer alight; of a light, etc.: no longer shining; extinguished, quenched.
“Edward’s cigarillo was extinct by the time he had finished talking.”
“Ah pleaſant proof! / That piety has ſtill in human hearts / Some place, a ſpark or tvvo not yet extinct.”
“Most of the lamps were extinct, but they glittered golden in the morning light, and in some few a pale white flame yet struggled with day.”
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adj
-
(archaic, not-comparable)Of fire, etc.: no longer alight; of a light, etc.: no longer shining; extinguished, quenched.
“Edward’s cigarillo was extinct by the time he had finished talking.”
“Ah pleaſant proof! / That piety has ſtill in human hearts / Some place, a ſpark or tvvo not yet extinct.”
“Most of the lamps were extinct, but they glittered golden in the morning light, and in some few a pale white flame yet struggled with day.”
-
(figuratively, not-comparable)Of feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.: put out, as if like a fire; quenched, suppressed.
“My breath is corrupt, my dayes are extinct, the graues are ready for me.”
“I am the Lord, your holy one, the Creatour of Iſrael, your King. […] Which bringeth foorth the charet and horſe, the armie and the power: they ſhall lie downe together, they ſhall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as towe.”
“Conversation seemed nearly extinct, and yet neither offered to turn back.”
“I knew at Paris a criminal condemned to die by the halter, […] He was cut down, and given to his friends before life was extinct, and I had the good fortune to recover him.”
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(figuratively, not-comparable)Of customs, ideas, laws and legal rights, offices, organizations, languages, etc.: no longer existing or in use; defunct, discontinued, obsolete; specifically, of a title of nobility: no longer having any person qualified to hold it.
“Luckily, such ideas about race are extinct in current sociological theory.”
“The title became extinct when the last baron died.”
“[King Edward] as being deſcended of the eldeſt Daughter of Dauid, Earle of Huntingdon, a yonger ſonne of [Henry of] Scotland; vvhoſe iſſue (the line of the elder brother being extinct) vvas to inherite, vvithout queſtion.”
“[I]f the father bee infeoffed with warrantie to him and his heyres, the father infeoffeth his eldeſt ſon with warrantie and dieth, the Law giueth to the ſonne aduantage of the Warrantie made to his father, becauſe by act in Law the Warrantie betweene the father and the ſonne is extinct.”
“[W]hen the Povver of an Aſſembly is once ſuppreſſed, the Right of the ſame periſheth utterly; becauſe the Aſſembly it ſelfe is extinct; and conſequently, there is no poſſibility for the Soveraignty to re-enter.”
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(figuratively, not-comparable)Of an animal or plant species or group of species, a group of people, a family, etc., having no living members, representatives, or descendants.
“Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years.”
“I vvent dovvn aftervvards into Yorkſhire; but my Father vvas dead, and my Mother, and all the Family extinct, except that I found tvvo Siſters, and tvvo of the Children of one of my Brothers; […]”
“[M]any breeds, now extinct or rare, both of quadrupeds and birds, were still common.”
“I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species.”
“Wrex: And before you die, I want you to know I'm calling off our support for Earth! If my people go extinct, so do yours!”
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(figuratively, not-comparable)Of a geological feature: no longer active; specifically, of a volcano: no longer erupting.
“Most of the volcanos on this island are now extinct.”
“They found the sites of extinct geysers.”
- (figuratively, not-comparable)Of a radioisotope: no longer occurring primordially due to having decayed away completely, because it has a relatively short half-life.
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(figuratively, not-comparable, obsolete)Of a person: dead; also, permanently separated from others.
“[H]e may at lybertie / Paſſe ſaue without hys ieopardy / Tyll that he be from vs extyncte / And clerely out of helles precincte”
verb
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(obsolete, transitive)Synonym of extinguish.
“[…] Eugenia […] was put in the hot baths, which were extincted, and ſhe preſerued: […] At laſt the ſtorie ſaith, ſhée was with the ſword beheaded.”
- (figuratively, obsolete, transitive)Synonym of extinguish.
-
(figuratively, obsolete, transitive)Synonym of extinguish.
“Graunt that al ſinne & vice here maie bee ſo extinct: that thei neuer haue power to raigne in they ſeruaũtes. Amẽ.”
“[…] Almes doe deliuer from all ſinne and from death;[…]. Not from that (ſaith Cyprian) which the blood of Chriſt hath once extincted, and from which the wholeſome grace of our baptiſme, and of our redeemer hath deliuered vs, but from that death which afterwards creepeth in by ſinne, &c.”
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(figuratively, obsolete, specifically, transitive)Synonym of extinguish.
“Paleontologists determine which animal species were extincted, and geomorphologists can find cycles of soil erosion. […] The first settlers were living along the coast of this very large island off Africa [Madagascar], but in about seven hundred years they had spread across the entire island and in the process extincted almost all large game, including hippos, tortoises, giant lemurs—some two dozen species in all.”
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(figuratively, obsolete, transitive)Synonym of extinguish.
“It is more hard, loue to our ſelues to extinkt, / Then hate to other, to plucke from tharts preſinkt, / Thus, of iuſtice no let ledeth intrupcion, / Like this loue (name ſelfe loue) growne of corrupcion.”
“Great Ioue, Othello guard, / And ſvvell his Saile vvith thine ovvne povvrefull breath, / That he may bleſſe this Bay vvith his tall Ship, / Make loues quicke pants in Deſdemonaes Armes, / Giue renevv'd fire to our extincted Spirits.”
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(figuratively, obsolete, transitive)Synonym of extinguish.
“So if I have a rent charge, and grant it upon condition; now, though the condition be broken, the grantee's estate is not defeated till I have made my claim: but if after any such grant my father purchase the land, and it descend to me; now, if the condition be broken, the rent ceaseth without claim. But if I had purchased the land myself, then I had extincted mine own condition, because I had disabled myself to make my claim.”
“And foraſmuch as the ſaid Statute vvas ordained to give a Certainty of Title in the Lands and Tenements compriſed in the Fine, it ſeemeth that the Fine extincteth the Title of all other, as vvell in Conſcience, as it doth in the Lavv.”
noun
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(obsolete, transitive, uncountable)Synonym of extinction (“the action of becoming or making extinct; annihilation”).
“[W]ho is he […] as vvould not euen in the glas of Lucreſias perſeuerãce (euẽ to the vttermoſt extinct of life) ſe the vvõder of bevvty, matched vvith the indiuiduat adiũt vnſoyled conſtancy.”
“[W]ee have cauſe to feare the loſſe of our Kingdome, and you the extinct of the Engliſh nations renovvne; […]”
Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.
Etymology
From Late Middle English extinct (“eliminated, eradicated, extinguished”), from Latin extīnctus, exstīnctus (“extinguished, quenched; destroyed, killed; made extinct”), the perfect passive participles of extinguō, exstinguō (“to extinguish, put out, quench;…
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From Late Middle English extinct (“eliminated, eradicated, extinguished”), from Latin extīnctus, exstīnctus (“extinguished, quenched; destroyed, killed; made extinct”), the perfect passive participles of extinguō, exstinguō (“to extinguish, put out, quench; (figurative) to abolish; to destroy, kill”), from ex- (prefix meaning ‘away; out’) + stinguō (“to extinguish, put out, quench”) (from Proto-Indo-European *stengʷ- (“to push”)). The Middle English word displaced Middle English aqueint, aquenched (“extinct; extinguished”). Doublet of extinguish.
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