extirpation

American  

[ek-ster-pey-shuhn] / ˌɛk stərˈpeɪ ʃən /

noun

1. 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.

2. 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.

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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."

Example Sentences

The Golden State’s gray wolves were hunted and trapped to extirpation a century ago.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 30, 2024

The magnificent ramshorn is endemic to the lower Cape Fear River Basin, and lived in three captive populations in North Carolina since 2004 following its extirpation from the wild, according to the wildlife commission.

From Washington Times • Nov. 21, 2023

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

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

Much damage is occasionally done by a species of worm, for the extirpation of which boys are engaged at from 1s. to 2s. per diem.

From Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate Novara, Volume III (Commodore B. Von Wullerstorf-Urbair,) Undertaken by Order of the Imperial Government in the Years 1857, 1858, & 1859, Under the Immediate Auspices of His I. and R. Highness the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, Commander-In-Chief of the Austrian Navy. by Scherzer, Karl Ritter von