extirpation
Americannoun
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Biology, Ecology. (of a species) the state or condition of having become locally or regionally extinct.
Forest elephants in Central Africa have experienced a 65 percent reduction in their populations, and extirpation is imminent if the poaching rate persists.
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Medicine/Medical. the removal or excision of a tumor, organ, etc..
Minor controllable bleeding was the only noted complication associated with lymph node extirpation in two of the thirty-nine performed procedures.
Etymology
Origin of extirpation
First recorded in 1540–50, for an earlier sense; extirpat(e) ( def. ) + -ion ( def. )
Explanation
Use the noun extirpation to describe the wiping out or elimination of some specific thing. If your summer project is the extirpation of the dandelions in your yard, you intend to pull up every last one. If a bird species is forced into extinction by a logging company cutting down trees in the rain forest, that activity can be said to have caused the birds' extirpation. The word is even more often used to talk about the deliberate removal of something, like one army's extirpation of every enemy soldier. The Latin root word, extirpationem, means "root out."
Vocabulary lists containing extirpation
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
California’s gray wolves were hunted and trapped to extirpation about 100 years ago, with the last documented wild wolf shot in 1924.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 19, 2025
Where species collapse does not occur, “climate change may result in large-scale mortality and population extirpation due to maladaptation of populations.”
From Scientific American ● May 5, 2023
For decades, the penny has faced — and successfully fended off — calls for its extirpation.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 20, 2023
Gray seals previously on the brink of extirpation in waters of New England now occupy some Massachusetts beaches by the hundreds.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 12, 2022
On account of the weakness of the patient extirpation was impossible.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 648, June 2, 1888. by Various
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
