Library / English Dictionary

EXTINGUISH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Kill in large numbers

Example:

the plague wiped out an entire population

Synonyms:

annihilate; carry off; decimate; eliminate; eradicate; extinguish; wipe out

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "extinguish" is one way to...):

kill (cause to die; put to death, usually intentionally or knowingly)

Verb group:

decimate (kill one in every ten, as of mutineers in Roman armies)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Derivation:

extinction (complete annihilation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Terminate, end, or take out

Example:

eliminate my debts

Synonyms:

do away with; eliminate; extinguish; get rid of

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "extinguish" is one way to...):

destroy; destruct (do away with, cause the destruction or undoing of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "extinguish"):

cancel out; wipe out (wipe out the effect of something)

decouple (reduce or eliminate the coupling of (one circuit or part to another))

decouple (eliminate airborne shock waves from (an explosive))

obliterate (do away with completely, without leaving a trace)

knock out (eliminate)

drown (get rid of as if by submerging)

cut out (delete or remove)

cut; prune; rationalise; rationalize (weed out unwanted or unnecessary things)

extinguish; snuff out (put an end to; kill)

except; exclude; leave off; leave out; omit; take out (prevent from being included or considered or accepted)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Put an end to; kill

Example:

The Nazis snuffed out the life of many Jewish children

Synonyms:

extinguish; snuff out

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "extinguish" is one way to...):

do away with; eliminate; extinguish; get rid of (terminate, end, or take out)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "extinguish"):

stamp (destroy or extinguish as if by stamping with the foot)

put out; smother (deprive of the oxygen necessary for combustion)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Derivation:

extinction (the act of extinguishing; causing to stop burning)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Extinguish by crushing

Example:

stub out your cigar

Synonyms:

crush out; extinguish; press out; stub out

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "extinguish" is one way to...):

end; terminate (bring to an end or halt)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 5

Meaning:

Put out, as of fires, flames, or lights

Example:

snuff out the candles

Synonyms:

blow out; extinguish; quench; snuff out

Classified under:

Verbs of raining, snowing, thawing, thundering

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "extinguish"):

stub (extinguish by crushing)

douse; put out (put out, as of a candle or a light)

black out (obliterate or extinguish)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Antonym:

ignite (cause to start burning; subject to fire or great heat)

Derivation:

extinction (the act of extinguishing; causing to stop burning)

extinguisher (a manually operated device for extinguishing small fires)

extinguishing (the act of extinguishing; causing to stop burning)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Alas! It was snuffed and extinguished in one.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I had myself extinguished the lamp and closed the door before coming to bed.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"Where's your secret? Play fair, Teddy, or I'll never believe you again," she said, trying to extinguish the brilliant hopes that blazed up at a word of encouragement.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Marianne, few as had been her hours of comfort in London, and eager as she had long been to quit it, could not, when it came to the point, bid adieu to the house in which she had for the last time enjoyed those hopes, and that confidence, in Willoughby, which were now extinguished for ever, without great pain.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways, and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer’s eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I desired you would let me know, by a letter, when party and faction were extinguished; judges learned and upright; pleaders honest and modest, with some tincture of common sense, and Smithfield blazing with pyramids of law books; the young nobility’s education entirely changed; the physicians banished; the female Yahoos abounding in virtue, honour, truth, and good sense; courts and levees of great ministers thoroughly weeded and swept; wit, merit, and learning rewarded; all disgracers of the press in prose and verse condemned to eat nothing but their own cotton, and quench their thirst with their own ink.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

She had too old a regard for him to be so wholly estranged as might in two meetings extinguish every past hope, and leave him nothing to do but to keep away from Uppercross: but there was such a change as became very alarming, when such a man as Captain Wentworth was to be regarded as the probable cause.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), which was once used in applications such as dry cleaning and as a fire-extinguishing agent, was regulated in 1987 under the Montreal Protocol along with other chlorofluorocarbons that destroy ozone and contribute to the ozone hole over Antarctica.

(Ozone-depleting compound persists, NASA)

I spoke from the pit of my stomach for the rest of the journey, but I felt completely extinguished, and dreadfully young.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I have no doubt that she loved you, but there are women in whom the love of a lover extinguishes all other loves, and I think that she must have been one.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)