extinguish
/ɪkˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃ/ verb
Forms extinguishes extinguishing extinguished
- verb To stop (fire, etc.) from burning; also, to stop (light, etc.) from shining; to put out, to quench.
- verb (figurative) To eclipse or obscure (someone or something). “A beauty that extinguishes all others by comparison”
- verb (figurative) To kill (someone).
- verb (figurative) To put an end to (something) completely; to annihilate, to destroy. “She extinguished all my hopes.”
- verb (psychology) To bring about the extinction of (a conditioned reflex). “Many patients can extinguish their phobias after a few months of treatment.”
- verb (figurative) To suppress (something, as feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.); to quench.
- verb (figurative, chiefly law) To abolish or make void (a law, a legal right, etc.); also, to cancel (a creditor's claim, a licence, etc.).
- verb (intransitive, reflexive) To die out.
Synonyms
douse extinct smother destroy annihilate aerosolize atomize benothing bewreck blot out blotto dash decompose demolish desolate devastate diffuse disintegrate disperse dissolve snuff out blow out quench stub out crush out press out eliminate get rid of do away with eradicate
Antonyms
Etymology
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.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To quench; to put out, as a light or fire; to stifle; to cause to die out; to put an end to; to destroy; as, to extinguish a flame, or life, or love, or hope, a pretense or a right.
- verb To obscure; to eclipse, as by superior splendor.
Etymology [L. extinguere, exstinguere; ex out + stinguere to quench. See Distinguish, Finish.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “extinguish”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details