extinction

American  

[ik-stingk-shuhn] / ɪkˈstɪŋk ʃən /

noun

1. the act of extinguishing.

2. the fact or condition of being extinguished or extinct.

3. suppression; abolition; annihilation.

   the extinction of an army.

4. Biology. the act or process of becoming extinct; a coming to an end or dying out.

   the extinction of a species.

5. Psychology. the reduction or loss of a conditioned response as a result of the absence or withdrawal of reinforcement.

6. Astronomy. the diminution in the intensity of starlight caused by absorption as it passes through the earth's atmosphere or through interstellar dust.

7. Crystallography, Optics. the darkness that results from rotation of a thin section to an angle extinction angle at which plane-polarized light is absorbed by the polarizer.

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extinction British  

/ ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən /

noun

1. the act of making extinct or the state of being extinct

2. the act of extinguishing or the state of being extinguished

3. complete destruction; annihilation

4. physics reduction of the intensity of radiation as a result of absorption or scattering by matter

5. astronomy the dimming of light from a celestial body as it passes through an absorbing or scattering medium, such as the earth's atmosphere or interstellar dust

6. psychol a process in which the frequency or intensity of a learned response is decreased as a result of reinforcement being withdrawn Compare habituation

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extinction Scientific  

/ ĭk-stĭngk′shən /

1. The fact of being extinct or the process of becoming extinct.

2. See more at background extinction mass extinction

3. A progressive decrease in the strength of a conditioned response, often resulting in its elimination, because of withdrawal of a specific stimulus.

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extinction Cultural  

1. The disappearance of a species from the Earth.

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Discover More

The fossil record tells us that 99.9 percent of all species that ever lived are now extinct.

Other Word Forms

• nonextinction noun
• preextinction noun
• self-extinction noun

Etymology

Origin of extinction

1375–1425; late Middle English extinccio ( u ) n < Latin ex ( s ) tinctiōn- (stem of ex ( s ) tinctiō ). See extinct, -ion

Example Sentences

But experts who examined that site found 78 fauna and flora species on Norway's "red list" -- species at risk of extinction to varying degrees.

From Barron's

To be sure, AI is still a long way from causing the extinction of software engineers.

From Los Angeles Times

Touchdown airbursts are a form of cosmic impact that may happen more often than the well-known, crater-forming events linked to mass extinctions.

From Science Daily

Led by scientists at Uppsala University, the international research team concluded that mosasaurs adapted to freshwater river systems during the final million years before their extinction.

From Science Daily

"Our analyses showed that the current abundance of D. africanum across the Canary Islands is at an all-time low, with several populations nearing local extinction," said Cano.

From Science Daily

Related Words

• annihilation
• destruction
• elimination
• obsolescence