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Extirpate
Definitions
- 1 Extirpated obsolete
"It is profitable […] to haue all occasions of sedicion […] to be extirpate."
- 2 Rooted out, extinct, utterly destroyed. obsolete
- 1 To clear an area of roots and stumps. obsolete, transitive
- 2 surgically remove (an organ) wordnet
- 3 To pull up by the roots; uproot. transitive
- 4 pull up by or as if by the roots wordnet
- 5 To destroy completely; to annihilate. transitive
"But you are not Hercules; nor able to extirpate the Evils of others: nor even Theſeus, to extirpate the Evils of Attica. Extirpate your own then."
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- 6 destroy completely, as if down to the roots wordnet
- 7 To cause a population to go extinct in a particular region, but not across the entire range of the species or subspecies.
"The cougar was extirpated across nearly all of its eastern North American range in the two centuries after European colonization."
- 8 To surgically remove. transitive
Etymology
The verb is first attested in 1538, the adjective in 1541; borrowed from Latin exstirpātus perfect passive participle of exstirpō (“to uproot”), from ex- (“out of”) + stirps (“the lower part of the trunk of a tree, including the roots; the stem, stalk”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)). Doublet of extirp. Common participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
The verb is first attested in 1538, the adjective in 1541; borrowed from Latin exstirpātus perfect passive participle of exstirpō (“to uproot”), from ex- (“out of”) + stirps (“the lower part of the trunk of a tree, including the roots; the stem, stalk”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)). Doublet of extirp. Common participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
See also for "extirpate"
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