extinct
Adjective
- no longer in existence; lost or especially having died out leaving no living representatives
- "an extinct species of fish"
- "an extinct royal family"
- "extinct laws and customs"
- (of e.g. volcanos) permanently inactive
- "an extinct volcano"
Adjective Satellite
- being out or having grown cold
- "threw his extinct cigarette into the stream"
Adj
- Of fire, etc.: no longer alight; of a light, etc.: no longer shining; extinguished, quenched.
- Of feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.: put out, as if like a fire; quenched, suppressed.
- Of customs, ideas, laws and legal rights, offices, organizations, 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.
- Of an animal or plant species, a class of people, a family, etc.: having died out completely; no longer in existence.
- Of a geological feature: no longer active; specifically, of a volcano: no longer erupting.
- Of a radioisotope: no longer occurring primordially due to having decayed away completely, because it has a relatively short half-life.
- Of a person: dead; also, permanently separated from others.
Verb
Verb Forms: extincted, extincting, extincts
- To cause to cease to exist; to extinguish.
- Synonym of extinguish.
- To stop (fire, etc.) from burning; also, to stop (light, etc.) from shining; to put out, to quench.
- Synonym of extinguish.
- To kill (someone).
- Synonym of extinguish.
- To put an end to (something) completely; to annihilate, to destroy.
- Synonym of extinguish.
- To put an end to (something) completely; to annihilate, to destroy.
- To cause (an animal or plant species) to die out completely or become extinct (adjective sense 2.3).
- Synonym of extinguish.
- To suppress (something, as feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.); to quench.
- Synonym of extinguish.
- To abolish or make void (a law, a legal right, etc.); also, to cancel (a creditor's claim, a licence, etc.).
Noun
- Synonym of extinction (“the action of becoming or making extinct; annihilation”).
Examples
- Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years.
- Edward’s cigarillo was extinct by the time he had finished talking.
- He tried to extinct his opponent’s chances by blocking all triple-word scores.
- Luckily, such ideas about race are extinct in current sociological theory.
- Most of the volcanos on this island are now extinct.
- The title became extinct when the last baron died.
- They found the sites of extinct geysers.
Origin / Etymology
PIE word
*h₁eǵʰs
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.
Synonyms
nonextant, out, Havishamesque, Miss Havishamesque, anachronistic, antediluvial, antediluvian, antiquated, antique, archaic, asleep, at rest, backward, backwards, behind the times, beingless, cadaverous, clay-cold, cobwebbed, cobwebby, dated, deceased, decomposed, defunct, departed, discontinued, disused, dootsie, elderly, expired, extinct, extinction, fey, fossilized, gone, good, idle, inanimate, inert, inessential, inexistent, kaput, late, lifeless, living impaired, low, no longer with us, no more, nonexistent, null, obsolete, old, old school, old-fashioned, oldfangled, out of date, out of fashion, outdated, outmoded, outworn, parachronistic, passé, perished, reposing, resting, six feet deep, six feet under, stiff, superannuated, superseded, unemployed, unoccupied, venerable, wasted, whilom, with God, workless, zilch
Antonyms
active, extant, alight, burning, de-extinct, dormant, inactive, inexistent, inextinct, living, nondriven, nonextinct, quiet, restful, sleeping, unextinct
Scrabble Score: 16
extinct: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordextinct: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
extinct: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary