extinction

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin exstinctiō (“extinction, annihilation”), also spelled extinctiō,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} a noun of action from the past participle stem of exstinguō (“to quench, wipe out”),^[3][6] the source of extinguish.^[3][2] The OED compares extinction.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Annihilation; the quenching of a fire or light: early 15th century in Etymonline;^[3] the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date it to late Middle English,^[4][6] while the OED's first quotation, for putting out fire or light, and figuratively hopes or life, is from Fabyan's chronicle, before 1513.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word was first used of fires and lights.^[3] From the early 17th century it was used figuratively of the wiping out of a person, a family or a debt:^[3] the OED records the destruction of a living being from 1615,^[2] the coming to an end of a family or race from 1602,^[2] and the abolition of an institution or cancelling of a debt from 1651, in Hobbes's Leviathan.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as the act of quenching, the state of being quenched, and destruction.^[7] The use for the dying out of a biological species, which is now the main sense, is recorded by 1784.^[3] Physics took the word for the reduction in the intensity of light passing through a medium (1794),^[2] and crystallography for the darkness of a crystal between crossed polarizers (1873).^[2]

Timeline

• early 15th century – annihilation; quenching of fire.^[3]
• a1513 – the putting out of fire or light.^[2]
• 1602 – the dying out of a family or race.^[2]
• 1615 – the destruction of a living being.^[2]
• 1651 – abolition; the cancelling of a debt.^[2]
• 1784 – the dying out of a species.^[3]
• 1794 – (physics) reduction in the intensity of light.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The dying out of a species, family or group, so that it no longer exists: Habitat loss has driven many frogs to extinction.
2. The act of making something extinct, or the state of being extinct; complete destruction.
3. The putting out of a fire or light; the act of extinguishing.
4. The cancelling of a debt or the abolition of a right or institution.
5. (physics, astronomy) The reduction in the intensity of light or other radiation as it passes through a medium, through absorption and scattering.

Word family

• nonextinction

Related words

• extinct
• extinguish
• distinguish
• instinct

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.