exterminate
verbUK /ɛkˈstəː.mɪ.neɪt/ · US /ɪkˈstɝ.mɪ.neɪt/
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.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 142:
2 more examples
- The geth are a humanoid race of networked A.I.s. They were created by the quarians 300 years ago as tools of labor and war. When the geth showed signs of self-evolution, the quarians attempted to exterminate them. The geth won the resulting war. This example has led to legal, systematic repression of artificial intelligences in galactic society.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Geth Codex entry:
- Somewhat unsurprisingly, unleashing the most powerful navy on the planet with carte blanche to exterminate slavers on sight saw a dramatic and sudden collapse in slaver numbers in the late 1840s and early 1850s.2018 December 1, Drachinifel, 10:12 from the start, in Anti-Slavery Patrols - The West Africa Squadron, archived from the original on 29 Nov 2024:
2
Figuratively To bring a definite end to; to finish completely.
- The public school failed to exterminate truancy.
- Synonyms
- annihilate, eradicate, extermine, uproot, stamp out
- Derived terms
- exterminatable, extermination, exterminative, exterminator, exterminatory, exterminatrix, exterminism
- Related terms
- terminate, termination, terminator