extirpate
verb
- remove or destroy totally
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈɛkstəpeɪt/ / /ˈɛkstɚpeɪt/
adj
Etymology: The verb is first attested in 1538, the adjective in 1541; borrowed from Latin exstirpātus perfect passive participle of exstirpō (“to uproot”), from ex- (“out of”) + stirps (“the lower part of the trunk of a tree, including the roots; the stem, stalk”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)). Doublet of extirp. Common participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
- Extirpated
“It is profitable […] to haue all occasions of sedicion […] to be extirpate.”
- Rooted out, extinct, utterly destroyed.
verb
Etymology: The verb is first attested in 1538, the adjective in 1541; borrowed from Latin exstirpātus perfect passive participle of exstirpō (“to uproot”), from ex- (“out of”) + stirps (“the lower part of the trunk of a tree, including the roots; the stem, stalk”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)). Doublet of extirp. Common participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
- To clear an area of roots and stumps.
- To pull up by the roots; uproot.
- To destroy completely; to annihilate.
“But you are not Hercules; nor able to extirpate the Evils of others: nor even Theſeus, to extirpate the Evils of Attica. Extirpate your own then.”
“The simple object was to expel the natives, and to extirpate the Catholic religion.”
- To cause a population to go extinct in a particular region, but not across the entire range of the species or subspecies.
“The cougar was extirpated across nearly all of its eastern North American range in the two centuries after European colonization.”
- To surgically remove.