Jump to content

extinct

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

[edit]

Pronunciation

[edit]

Etymology 1

[edit]

From Late Middle English extinct ("eliminated, eradicated, extinguished"),[1] from Latin extinctus, exstinctus ("extinguished, quenched; destroyed, killed; made extinct"), the perfect passive participles of extinguo, exstinguo ("to extinguish, put out, quench; (figurative) to abolish; to destroy, kill"),[2] from ex- (prefix meaning 'away; out') + stinguo ("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.

Adjective

[edit]

extinct (not comparable)

  1. (archaic) Of fire, etc.: no longer alight; of a light, etc.: no longer shining; extinguished, quenched.
    Antonyms: alight, burning
    Edward's cigarillo was extinct by the time he had finished talking.
  2. (figurative)
    1. Of feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.: put out, as if like a fire; quenched, suppressed.
    2. 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.
      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:obsolete
      Antonyms: (archaic) inextinct, unextinct; see also Thesaurus:active
      Luckily, such ideas about race are extinct in current sociological theory.
      The title became extinct when the last baron died.
      • 1611, Iohn Speed [i.e., John Speed], "Edward the First, [...]", in The History of Great Britaine under the Conquests of ye Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans. [...], London: [...] William Hall and John Beale, for John Sudbury and George Humble, [...], -OCLC, book IX ([Englands Monarchs] [...]), paragraph 23, page 652, column 2:
        [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.
      • 1628, Edw[ard] Coke, "Of Warrantie", in The First Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England. [...], London: [...] [Adam Islip] for the Societe of Stationers, -OCLC, book 3, section 733, folio 384, verso:
        [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.
      • 1651, Thomas Hobbes, "Of Those Things that Weaken, or Tend to the Dissolution of a Common-wealth", in Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, London: [...] [William Wilson] for Andrew Crooke, [...], -OCLC, 2nd part (Of Common-wealth), page 174:
        [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.
      • 1726, John Ayliffe, "Of Ecclesiastical Censures, and the Division thereof", in Parergon Juris Canonici Anglicani: Or, A Commentary, by Way of Supplement to the Canons and Constitutions of the Church of England. [...], London: [...] D. Leach, and sold by John Walthoe [...], -OCLC, page 156:
        An Ecclesiastical Censure is tvvofold; the one inflicted by Lavv; and the other inflicted by Man. [...] Some say, That a Censure ab Homine, ceases on the Death of the Person, that pronounced the same; but a Censure inflicted a Jure continues, tho' such Lavv be extinct, or the Lavv-giver removed from his Office.
      • 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter V, in The History of England from the Accession of James II, volume I, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, -OCLC, page 36:
        The hatred with which he [George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys] was regarded by the people of Somersetshire has no parallel in our history. [...] When he had been many years dead, when his name and title were extinct, his granddaughter, the Countess of Pomfret [Henrietta Louisa Fermor], travelling along the western road, was insulted by the populace, and found that she could not safely venture herself among the descendants of those who had witnessed the bloody assizes.
      • 1951 October, H[enry] C[yril] Casserley, "Crane Engines", in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, -ISSN, -OCLC, page 660:
        The withdrawal in past months of the former North London Railway locomotive from Bow, and one of the three ex-Great Eastern engines from Stratford works, indicates that the crane locomotive will soon be extinct on British Railways.
      • 1961 January, Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, -ISSN, -OCLC, photograph caption, page 59:
        The ex-G.C. Class A5 4-6-2T, of which No. 69820 was one, is now extinct.
      • 1988, Andrew Radford, "Other Phrases", in Transformational Grammar: A First Course (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire; New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, published 1989, -ISBN, page 275:
        Indeed the very fact that the English spelling system writes in there as two words but therein as one word might be taken as suggesting that only the former is a productive syntactic construction in Modern English, the latter being a now extinct construction which has left behind a few fossil remnants in the form of compound words such as thereby.
    4. (biology) Of an animal or plant species or group of species, a group of people, a family, etc., having no living members, representatives, or descendants. (Discuss(+) this sense)
      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:inexistent
      Antonyms: extant, (archaic) inextinct, living, nonextinct, unextinct; see also Thesaurus:existent
      Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years.
    5. (geology) Of a geological feature: no longer active; specifically, of a volcano: no longer erupting.
      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:dead
      Antonyms: active, dormant, nonextinct, unextinct
      Most of the volcanos on this island are now extinct.
      They found the sites of extinct geysers.
    6. (nuclear physics) Of a radioisotope: no longer occurring primordially due to having decayed away completely, because it has a relatively short half-life.
    7. (obsolete) Of a person: dead; also, permanently separated from others.
      • [1545?], John Heywood, The Playe Called The Foure PP [...], London: [...] Wyllyam Myddylton, -OCLC; reprinted as John S. Farmer, editor, The Play Called The Four PP [...] (The Tudor Facsimile Texts), London; Edinburgh: [...] T. C. & E. C. Jack, [...], 1908, -OCLC, signature D.iii., recto:
        [H]e may at lybertie / Passe saue without hys ieopardy / Tyll that he be from vs extyncte / And clerely out of helles precincte
Derived terms
[edit]
[edit]
Translations
[edit]
of fire, etc.: no longer alight; of a light, etc.: no longer shining -- see also extinguished, quenched
of feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.: put out, as if like a fire -- see also quenched, suppressed
  • Finnish: hiipunut
  • Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
of customs, offices, etc.: no longer existing or in use; of a title of nobility: no longer having any person qualified to hold it -- see also defunct, discontinued, obsolete
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; of a volcano: no longer erupting
of a radioisotope: no longer occurring primordially due to having decayed away completely
  • Finnish: havinnyt (fi)
  • Macedonian: please add this translation if you can

Etymology 2

[edit]

From Middle English extincten ("to extinguish or put out (a fire, light, etc.); to destroy, kill; (figurative) to suppress (an uprising); (law) to quash or stop (legal proceedings); to cancel (a privilege, title, etc.); (medicine) to eliminate or reduce (inflammation, an ulcer, etc.)"),[3] from extinct (adjective) (see etymology 1)[4] + -en (suffix forming the infinitive of verbs).[5]

Verb

[edit]

extinct (third-person singular simple present extincts, present participle extincting, simple past extincted, past participle extincted or (obsolete) extinct) (transitive)

  1. Synonym of extinguish.
    1. (obsolete) To stop (fire, etc.) from burning; also, to stop (light, etc.) from shining; to put out, to quench.
    2. (obsolete, figurative) To kill (someone).
    3. (obsolete, figurative) To put an end to (something) completely; to annihilate, to destroy.
      2. (specifically, biology) To cause (an animal or plant species) to die out completely or become extinct (adjective etymology 1 sense 2.3).
        Antonym: de-extinct
        • 2003, Steven A. LeBlanc, Katherine E. Register, "Was there Ever an Eden?", in Constant Battles: Why We Fight, 1st St. Martin's Griffin edition, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, published August 2004, -ISBN, page 34:
          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.
    4. (obsolete, figurative) To suppress (something, as feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.); to quench.
      • 1556, John Heywood, chapter 7, in The Spider and the Flie. [...], London: [...] Tho[mas] Powell, -OCLC; republished as A[dolphus] W[illiam] Ward, editor, The Spider and the Flie. [...] (Publications of the Spenser Society, New Series; 6), Manchester: [...] [Charles E. Simms] for the Spenser Society, 1894, -OCLC, page 50:
        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.
      • c. 1603-1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, "The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice", in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [...] (First Folio), London: [...] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, -OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 316, column 2:
        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.
        An adjective use.
    5. (obsolete, figurative, chiefly law) To abolish or make void (a law, a legal right, etc.); also, to cancel (a creditor's claim, a licence, etc.).
      • c. 1596 (date written), Francis Bacon, "Maxims of the Law. Regula IX. Quod remedio destituitur ipsa re valet, si culpa absit.", in James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath, editors, The Works of Francis Bacon, [...], volume VII, London: Longman, Green, and Co.; [...], published 1859, -OCLC, page 353:
        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.
      • 1746, Christopher St. Germain, "The Fifth Question of the Student", in Doctor and Student: Or Dialogues between a Doctor of Divinity, and a Student in the Laws of England, [...], In the Savoy [London]: [...] Henry Lintot, (assignee of Edward Sayer, Esq), -OCLC, page 74:
        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.
Usage notes
[edit]

Etymology 2 sense 1.3.1 ("to cause (an animal or plant species) to die out completely or become extinct") is the only sense that is current.

Derived terms
[edit]
Translations
[edit]
to cause (an animal or plant species) to die out completely or become extinct

Etymology 3

[edit]

Either:[6]

Noun

[edit]

extinct (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) Synonym of extinction ("the action of becoming or making extinct; annihilation").
    • 1606, I. F. [i.e., John Ford], "To the Right Honorable the Earle of Pembroke. Third Position. Faire Ladie was Neuer False.", in Honor Triumphant. Or The Peeres Challenge, by Armes Defensible, at Tilt, Turney, and Barriers. [...], London: [...] [George Eld] for Francis Burton, -OCLC, signature [D2], verso:
      [W]ho is he [...] as vvould not euen in the glas of Lucresias perseuerace (eue to the vttermost extinct of life) se the vvoder of bevvty, matched vvith the indiuiduat adiut vnsoyled constancy.
      [W]ho is he [...] as would not even in the glass of Lucretia's perseverance (even to the uttermost extinction of life) see the wonder of beauty, matched with the individuate adjunct unsoiled constancy.
    • 1611, Iohn Speed [i.e., John Speed], "Ethelred Commonly Called the Unreadie, [...]", in The History of Great Britaine under the Conquests of ye Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans. [...], London: [...] William Hall and John Beale, for John Sudbury and George Humble, [...], -OCLC, book VII ([The Saxons] [...]), paragraph 30, page 360, column 1:
      [W]ee have cause to feare the losse of our Kingdome, and you the extinct of the English nations renovvne; [...]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "extinct, ppl.", in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ Compare "extinct, adj.", in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2024; "extinct, adj.", in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019-2022.
  3. ^ "extincten, v.", in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  4. ^ "+ extinct, v.", in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2023.
  5. ^ "-en, suf.(3)", in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  6. ^ "+ extinct, n.", in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2023.

Further reading

[edit]