extirpate

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   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.

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.

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