extinction

From late Middle English, borrowed from Latin extinctio (“extinction, annihilation”), from extinguere, past participle extinctus (“to extinguish”); see extinguish.

• IPA^(key): /ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən/

• Audio (Southern England):

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extinction (countable and uncountable, plural extinctions)

1. The action of making or becoming extinct; annihilation.
   • 1922, Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization‎^[1], page 41:

     Thirteen long centuries have elapsed since the extinction of the last Zoroastrian Empire […]

   • 1951 November, David R. Webb, “The Drummond 4-4-0 Locomotives”, in Railway Magazine, page 773:

     Their lives were short; all were condemned by the early 1930s, presumably because, like most classes of G.S.W.R. engines, their small numbers invited extinction under any comprehensive programme of standardisation.

   • 1955, A. W. Schorger, The Passenger Pigeon: Its Natural History and Extinction, →ISBN, page vii:

     The extinction of a species once so numerous seemed incredible.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Eden Prime:

     Dr. Manuel: You're wasting your time. The age of humanity is over. Our extinction is inevitable.

   • 2012 January, Donald Worster, “A Drier and Hotter Future”, in American Scientist‎^[2], volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 26 January 2012, page 70:

     Phoenix and Lubbock are both caught in severe drought, and it is going to get much worse. We may see many such [dust] storms in the decades ahead, along with species extinctions, radical disturbance of ecosystems, and intensified social conflict over land and water. Welcome to the Anthropocene, the epoch when humans have become a major geological and climatic force.

   • 2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3:

     On the East and West Coast Main Lines in the 1950s/60s, for example, we saw the extinction of intermediate stations in order to create the same sort of accelerations that IRP is now promising. Back then, the priority was faster main line services, with wayside/intermediate stations paying the ultimate price.

   • 2023 June 17, Severin Carrell, “Dancing Capercaillie bird makes a tentative comeback in Scotland”, in The Guardian‎^[3]:

     In Perthshire, the Aberdeenshire catchments of Deeside and Donside, in Moray and Nairnshire to the north-east, the populations are in low single figures, putting them on the brink of local extinction.

2. (astronomy) The absorption or scattering of electromagnetic radiation emitted by astronomical objects by intervening dust and gas before it reaches the observer.
3. (pathology) The inability to perceive multiple stimuli simultaneously.
4. (psychology) The fading of a conditioned response over time if it is not reinforced.

• “extinction”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “extinction”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• ctenitoxin

Borrowed from Latin extinctiōnem.

• IPA^(key): /ɛk.stɛ̃k.sjɔ̃/, /ɛks.tɛ̃k.sjɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ex‧tinc‧tion

extinction f (plural extinctions)

1. extinction

• “extinction”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.