Extinct means having no living members left anywhere. An extinct species, the bird is extinct, extinct since 1936.
The formal declaration usually waits decades after the last sighting, which is why extinct in the wild is a separate category — the species survives only in captivity. Functionally extinct means too few remain to recover. An extinct volcano is one that will not erupt again, against dormant. Note extinction, and that the current rate of it is the reason the word appears in the news as often as it does.
1adjectiveextinctHaving no living members left anywhere.
“The bird has been extinct since about 1936.”
2adjectivelongerNo longer active, of a volcano.
“The volcano is extinct and the town is built on it.”
extinct is a state of having died out.
Latin extinctus is the participle of extinguere, to put out — the same verb as extinguish. A species that is extinct has been snuffed out like a candle, which is exactly the image the Romans had in mind.
Proto-Indo-European
*stengʷ- — to push
Latin
extīnctus
Middle English
extinct — eliminated, eradicated, extinguished
English, today
extinct
Built from
From Late Middle English extinct (“eliminated, eradicated, extinguished”), from Latin extīnctus, exstīnctus (“extinguished, quenched; destroyed, killed; made extinct”), the perfect passive participles of extinguō, exstinguō (“to extinguish, put out, quench; (figurative) to abolish; to destroy, kill”), from ex- + stinguō (“to extinguish, put out, quench”) (from Proto-Indo-European stengʷ- (“to push”)). The Middle English word displaced Middle English aqueint, aquenched (“extinct; extinguished”). a doublet of extinguish.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA