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Webster 1913 Edition


Extinct

Ex-tinct′

,
Adj.
[L.
extinctus
,
exstinctus
, p. p. of
extinguere
,
exstinguere
. See
Extinguish
.]
1.
Extinguished; put out; quenched;
as, a fire, a light, or a lamp, is
extinct
; an
extinct
volcano.
Light, the prime work of God, to me is
extinct
.
Milton.
2.
Without a survivor; without force; dead;
as, a family becomes
extinct
; an
extinct
feud or law.

Ex-tinct′

,
Verb.
T.
To cause to be extinct.
[Obs.]
Shak.

Webster 1828 Edition


Extinct

EXTINCT'

,
Adj.
[L. extinctus. See Extinguish.
1.
Extinguished; put out; quenched; as, fire, light or a lamp is extinct.
2.
Being at an end; having no survivor; as, a family or race is extinct.
3.
Being at an end; having ceased. The enmity between the families is extinct.
My days are extinct. Job.17.
4.
Being at an end, by abolition or disuse; having no force; as, the law is extinct.

Definition 2024


extinct

extinct

English

Adjective

extinct (comparative more extinct, superlative most extinct)

  1. (dated) Extinguished, no longer alight (of fire, candles etc.)
    Poor Edward's cigarillo was already extinct.
  2. No longer used; obsolete, discontinued.
    • Luckily, such ideas about race are extinct in current sociological theory.
    • 1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 5, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 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 suggest-
      ing 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.
  3. No longer in existence; having died out.
    The dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years.
  4. (volcanology) No longer actively erupting.
    Most of the volcanos on this island are now extinct.

Synonyms

  • (volcanology: no longer erupting): dead

Antonyms

Related terms

Translations

External links

  • extinct in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
  • extinct in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911