extinct

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin exstīnctus, also extīnctus,^[2][3][4][5] the past participle of exstinguō (“to put out, quench; to die out; to destroy”),^[6][4][7] the source of extinguish.^[8][6] That verb is formed from ex- (“out”) and stinguō (“to quench”).^[9][7][8] Ayto thinks the simple verb first meant to prick or stick, a sense kept in the source of distinct,^[8] and Etymonline connects it, with some doubt, with Proto-Indo-European *steig- (“to prick, stick, pierce”).^[6] The OED notes that in Caxton and 16th-century writers the word can be taken as the past participle of an English verb extinct, to extinguish, which was used from 1483 to 1626 and was itself borrowed from the Latin participial stem.^[5][7][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a fire or light: put out, quenched, no longer burning, probably before 1425 in a translation of Higden's Polychronicon ("That fire was extinct"),^[3][8][6] which the OED dates ?a1475 from its manuscript.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The image of a fire that has gone out was carried over to things like life, hope or passion (a1513),^[5] while between 1483 and 1675 a person could be extinct, cut off or dead.^[5] Applied to things that end with no successor, the word was used of an office, institution or title of nobility from 1581,^[5][3] and of a family or a species of animals or plants from 1683,^[5][3][8] Etymonline giving the 1690s for species.^[6] Barnhart links the dying-out sense to that of extinction, recorded before 1470.^[3] Johnson (1755) gave the two meanings "extinguished" and "at a stop; without progressive succession".^[11] The OED places extinct volcano, one that has stopped erupting, under the sense of a fire put out.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – of a fire, put out, quenched.^[3][6][5]
• 1483 – of a person, dead, cut off (obsolete by 1675).^[5]
• a1513 – of life, hope and the like, quenched.^[5]
• 1528 – in law, possibility of issue extinct.^[5]
• 1581 – of an office or title of nobility, having no holder or claimant.^[5][3]
• 1683 – of a family or species, having no living members.^[5][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a species or other group of living things: having no living members left; died out: The dodo has been extinct for centuries.^[12][10][5]
2. Of a volcano: no longer active and not expected to erupt again.^[12][10][5]
3. No longer existing or in use; obsolete: an extinct custom.^[12][10]
4. Of a title of nobility: having no one left with a claim to it.^[5][10]
5. Of a fire or light, or of feelings: put out, quenched.^{[12][10][5][11]}

Word family

• nonextinct
• unextinct

Related words

• distinct
• extinction
• extinctive
• extinguish
• nonextinction

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins