extermine
extermine verb: to exterminate (someone or something); to destroy.
Verb
extermine (third-person singular simple present extermines, present participle extermining, simple past and past participle extermined)
- To exterminate (someone or something); to destroy.
- VVherever ſorrovv is, relief vvould be. / If you do ſorrovv at my grief in love, / By giving love your ſorrovv and my grief / VVere both extermined.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- Without the instinct of self-preservation, which causes the sea-anemone to contract its tentacles, or the fish to dash into its hover, species would be extermined wholesale by involuntary suicide.1874, Charles Kingsley, “Superstition. A Lecture Delivered at the Royal Institution, London.”, in Health and Education, London: W. Isbister & Co. […], →OCLC, page 234
Forms of extermine
| third-person singular present | extermines |
|---|---|
| present participle | extermining |
| past participle | extermined |
| past | extermined |
Origin of extermine
From French exterminer, from Latin extermino.
Questions about extermine
- What does extermine mean?
- Extermine means to exterminate (someone or something); to destroy.
- What part of speech is extermine?
- Extermine is a verb.
- What is the past tense of extermine?
- The past tense of extermine is extermined.
Words near extermine in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: extermine (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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Cite this entry: “extermine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/extermine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.