extinct

Meaning

Adj

1. Of fire, etc.: no longer alight; of a light, etc.: no longer shining; extinguished, quenched.
2. Of feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.: put out, as if like a fire; quenched, suppressed.
3. Of customs, ideas, laws and legal rights, offices, organizations, 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.
4. Of an animal or plant species, a class of people, a family, etc.: having died out completely; no longer in existence.
5. Of a geological feature: no longer active; specifically, of a volcano: no longer erupting.
6. 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.

Verb

1. (obsolete) Synonym of extinguish
2. (obsolete) Synonym of extinguish
3. (obsolete) Synonym of extinguish
4. (obsolete) Synonym of extinguish
5. (obsolete) Synonym of extinguish
6. (obsolete) Synonym of extinguish

Noun

Synonym of extinction (“the action of becoming or making extinct; annihilation”)

Hyphenated as

ex‧tinct

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ɪkˈstɪŋ(k)t/

Etymology

PIE word
*h₁eǵʰs
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.

Sentences

The species was originally considered already extinct at the time of its discovery .