Extinction
//ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən// noun
noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The action of making or becoming extinct; annihilation. countable, uncountable
"Thirteen long centuries have elapsed since the extinction of the last Zoroastrian Empire[…]"
- 2 the act of extinguishing; causing to stop burning wordnet
- 3 The absorption or scattering of electromagnetic radiation emitted by astronomical objects by intervening dust and gas before it reaches the observer. countable, uncountable
- 4 a conditioning process in which the reinforcer is removed and a conditioned response becomes independent of the conditioned stimulus wordnet
- 5 The inability to perceive multiple stimuli simultaneously. countable, uncountable
Show 5 more definitions
- 6 complete annihilation wordnet
- 7 The fading of a conditioned response over time if it is not reinforced. countable, uncountable
- 8 the reduction of the intensity of radiation as a consequence of absorption and radiation wordnet
- 9 no longer in existence wordnet
- 10 no longer active; extinguished wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The Siberian tiger is on the verge of extinction."
Etymology
From late Middle English, borrowed from Latin extinctio (“extinction, annihilation”), from extinguere, past participle extinctus (“to extinguish”); see extinguish.
Related phrases
More for "extinction"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.