exterminatory

Also ex·ter·mi·na·tive

[ik-stur-muh-nuh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee]

adjective

1. serving or tending to exterminate.

Other Word Forms

• nonexterminative adjective
• nonexterminatory adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of exterminatory¹

First recorded in 1780–90; exterminate + -ory ¹

Example Sentences

“We cannot live under this exterminatory threat.”

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“There’s an exterminatory amount of precedence for this … The Trump administration also did this very thing, but also it has happened before,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in a separate interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

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But her conviction made clear that participation in an exterminatory system, at whatever level, deserves to be recognized as a crime.

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These exterminatory Islamist views are not narrowly political or military.

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In 2014, what strange pleasures — and horrors — can be found in rising adult fears in an exterminatory world? 

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