extinct

CEFRC1

/ɪkˈstɪŋkt/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    No longer existing, especially because all members have died.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    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.

Examples

  • Many animals that lived thousands of years ago are now extinct.

  • Edward’s cigarillo was extinct by the time he had finished talking.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Also pronounced

  • /ɛk-/
  • /ɪkˈstɪŋt/

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Of feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.: put out, as if like a fire; quenched, suppressed.

  2. Of fire, etc.: no longer alight; of a light, etc.: no longer shining; extinguished, quenched.

  3. Of an animal or plant species or group of species, a group of people, a family, etc., having no living members, representatives, or descendants.

More examples

In context

  • Luckily, such ideas about race are extinct in current sociological theory.

  • The title became extinct when the last baron died.

  • Dinosaurs are now extinct.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The dodo bird has been blank for over three hundred years due to hunting and habitat loss.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

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.