exterminate

verb

Etymology: Borrowed from Latin exterminātus, perfect passive participle of exterminō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from ex- (“thoroughly”) + terminō (“to finish, close, end”), from terminus (“limit, end”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix).

1. To kill or otherwise permanently eliminate all of (a population, often of pests or undesirables), usually intentionally.

   “We'll use poison to exterminate the rats.”

   “The natives everywhere eat their [sc. cuscuses] flesh, and as their motions are so slow, easily catch them by climbing; so that it is wonderful they have not been exterminated. It may be, however, that their dense woolly fur protects them from birds of prey, and the islands they live in are too thinly inhabited for man to be able to exterminate them.”

2. To bring a definite end to; to finish completely.

   “The public school failed to exterminate truancy.”