Other forms: extinctions
Extinction is the permanent disappearance of a whole kind of creature. Facing extinction, driven to extinction, the extinction of a species.
A species is declared extinct only after exhaustive searching, which is why declarations lag decades behind the last sighting. Mass extinction means one of the handful of events in which most species on earth died out; there have been five, and many biologists argue a sixth is under way. Note extinct, the adjective; and de-extinction, the contested project of bringing back lost species.
1nounextinctionThe permanent disappearance of a whole kind of creature.
“Tigers could face extinction in the wild unless their forests are protected.”
extinction is a dying out.
Latin extinctio comes from extinguere, to put out — the same verb as extinguish. A species going extinct is being snuffed out, which is a candle metaphor two thousand years old.
Latin
extinctio — extinction, annihilation
English, today
extinction
Built from
From late Middle English -, borrowed from Latin extinctio (“extinction, annihilation”), from extinguere, past participle extinctus (“to extinguish”); see extinguish.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA