Word.ws English Dictionary

de-extinction

de-extinction noun: the process of returning an extinct species back into the world.

Noun

de-extinction (usually uncountable, plural de-extinctions)

  1. (neologism, usually) The process of returning an extinct species back into the world.
    • Even this more limited ambition, however, speaks eloquently of the rapid progress being made in the area of de-extinction.2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 309
    • The concept of de-extinction is fascinating in much the same way that the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World are.2020, “Life Finds A Way”, in Jonathan Elmore, editor, Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN

Forms of de-extinction

pluralde-extinctions

Origin of de-extinction

From de- + extinction.

Words formed from de-extinction

Questions about de-extinction

What does de-extinction mean?
De-extinction means the process of returning an extinct species back into the world.
What part of speech is de-extinction?
De-extinction is a noun.
What is the plural of de-extinction?
The plural of de-extinction is de-extinctions.

Words near de-extinction in the dictionary

  1. de-excitation
  2. de-excitations
  3. de-extinct
  4. de-extincted
  5. de-extincting
  6. de-extinction
  7. de-extinctioned
  8. de-extinctions
  9. de-extincts
  10. de-extremization
  11. de-facto

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: de-extinction (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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