Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To cause (a fire or light) to stop burning or shining; put out.
- transitive verb To put an end to or make extinct; destroy: synonym: annihilate.
- transitive verb Psychology To bring about the extinction of (a conditioned response).
from The Century Dictionary.
- To put out; quench; stifle: as, to
extinguish fire or flame. - To destroy; put an end to; suppress: as, to
extinguish an army; to extinguish desire or hope; to extinguish a claim or title. - To put under a cloud; obscure: eclipse; make unnoticed or unnoticeable: as, he was completely extinguished in this brilliant company.
- In law, to put an end to. See
extinguishment , 2.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To quench; to put out, as a light or fire; to stifle; to cause to die out; to put an end to; to destroy.
- transitive verb To obscure; to eclipse, as by superior splendor.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive to
put out , as infire ; to endburning ; toquench - verb transitive to
destroy orabolish something - verb transitive to
obscure oreclipse something - verb transitive, psychology to bring about the
extinction of aconditioned reflex - verb transitive, literally to hunt down (a species) to extinction
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb put out, as of fires, flames, or lights
- verb put an end to; kill
- verb terminate, end, or take out
- verb kill in large numbers
- verb extinguish by crushing
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word extinguish.
Examples
-
Does not a little word extinguish all pleasures of that sort?
Laws 2006
-
He now tries to woo Lib Dem voters and MPs, not "extinguish" them.
Political briefing: Solid start for Ed Miliband, but he has a long way to go Michael White 2010
-
By taking Reid's comments about President Obama out of context, we do ourselves an injustice -- the same injustice we do when we want to "extinguish" racist comments.
Srinivasan Pillay: The Reid Comments: The Double-Edged Sword of Racial Insensitivity 2010
-
Nothing and no-one told me that because education was compulsary, I should therefore "extinguish" the amount of voluntary learning I did outside of school hours.
-
On Tuesday the court heard that former president Nelson Mandela also offered to "extinguish" Zuma's debt because he feared that Zuma's financial problems were "distracting him from his duties at the ANC".
-
By law, local authorities were not allowed to "extinguish" housing debt, and was compelled to collect all monies due and payable.
-
As a matter of curiosity, I should like to see the man 'extinguish' himself by stepping forward and telling us in plain English language, had he been a member of the Legislature, would he have voted against the people expressing their opinion upon the subject.
The Beginnings of Public Education in North Carolina; A Documentary History, 1790-1840. Vol. II Charles Lee 1908
-
But if they don't like the look of their match, they can 'extinguish' the spark, without sharing anything.
iac world news feed 2010
-
If the petition reaches that stage, the committee must decide whether to submit a bill to the legislature that would "extinguish" the HST and pay back all the extra money collected under it, or stage a province-wide referendum on the measure.
-
He now tries to woo Lib Dem voters and MPs, not "extinguish" them.
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.