extirpate
Verb
- destroy completely, as if down to the roots
- pull up by or as if by the roots
- surgically remove (an organ)
- To clear an area of roots and stumps.
- To pull up by the roots; uproot.
- To destroy completely; to annihilate,
- To cause to go extinct locally within a population, but not within a species or subspecies.
- To surgically remove.
Adj
- Extirpated
- Rooted out, extinct, utterly destroyed.
Examples
- The cougar was extirpated across nearly all of its eastern North American range in the two centuries after European colonization.
Origin / Etymology
The verb is first attested in 1538, the adjective in 1541; Borrowed from Latin exstirpātus perfect passive participle of exstirpō (“to uproot”), from ex- (“out of”) + stirps (“the lower part of the trunk of a tree, including the roots; the stem, stalk”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)). Doublet of extirp. Common participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
Synonyms
deracinate, eradicate, exterminate, root out, uproot, aerosolize, annihilate, atomize, benothing, bewreck, blot out, blotto, dash, decompose, demolish, desolate, destroy, devastate, diffuse, disintegrate, disperse, dissolve, eliminate, erase, excise, extinguish, extirpate, extricate, fuck, harry, jazz, lay waste, level, liquidate, nuke, obliterate, pull down, pulverize, race, ravage, raze, remove, ruin, stamp out, total, unbreed, unexist, unmake, waste, wipe off, wipe out, wreck
Scrabble Score: 18
extirpate: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordextirpate: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
extirpate: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary