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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

extinguish.

To end (something).

10 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ɪkˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃ/
  1. To end (something). To stop (fire, etc.) from burning; also, to stop (light, etc.) from shining; to put out, to quench.

    transitive
  2. To end (something). To eclipse or obscure (someone or something).

    figuratively · transitive
    A beauty that extinguishes all others by comparison
    The rays of the sun were extinguished by the thunder clouds.
  3. To end (something). To kill (someone).

    figuratively · transitive
  4. To end (something). To put an end to (something) completely; to annihilate, to destroy.

    figuratively · transitive
    She extinguished all my hopes.
    They intended to extinguish the enemy by force of numbers
  5. To end (something). To put an end to (something) completely; to annihilate, to destroy. To bring about the extinction of (a conditioned reflex).

    figuratively · transitive
    Many patients can extinguish their phobias after a few months of treatment.
  6. To end (something). To suppress (something, as feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.); to quench.

    figuratively · transitive
  7. To end (something). To abolish or make void (a law, a legal right, etc.); also, to cancel (a creditor's claim, a licence, etc.).

    figuratively · transitive
  8. To die out.

    intransitive · reflexive
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Latin extinguo (“to put out (what is burning), quench, extinguish, deprive of life, destroy, abolish”), from ex (“out”) + stinguere (“to put out, quench, extinguish”). Doublet of extinct.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.