EXTINGUISHING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does extinguishing mean? 

• EXTINGUISHING (noun)
  The noun EXTINGUISHING has 1 sense:

1. the act of extinguishing; causing to stop burning

  Familiarity information: EXTINGUISHING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EXTINGUISHING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of extinguishing; causing to stop burning

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

extinction; extinguishing; quenching

Context example:

the extinction of the lights

Hypernyms ("extinguishing" is a kind of...):

conclusion; ending; termination (the act of ending something)

Derivation:

extinguish (put out, as of fires, flames, or lights)

 Context examples 

When the early stars died, black holes, supernovae and other objects they left behind continued the ionizing process and heated the remaining free hydrogen with X-rays, eventually extinguishing the signal.

(Astronomers detect ancient signal from first stars in universe, National Science Foundation)

And Proxima b could be subject to potentially life-extinguishing stellar flares.

(ESO Discovers Earth-Size Planet in Habitable Zone of Nearest Star, NASA)

We looked into the other little room, and came back to Mrs. Gummidge, sitting on the locker, whom Mr. Peggotty, putting the light on the chimney-piece, requested to rise, that he might carry it outside the door before extinguishing the candle.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Whereas, by a statute made in the reign of his imperial majesty Calin Deffar Plune, it is enacted, that, whoever shall make water within the precincts of the royal palace, shall be liable to the pains and penalties of high-treason; notwithstanding, the said Quinbus Flestrin, in open breach of the said law, under colour of extinguishing the fire kindled in the apartment of his majesty’s most dear imperial consort, did maliciously, traitorously, and devilishly, by discharge of his urine, put out the said fire kindled in the said apartment, lying and being within the precincts of the said royal palace, against the statute in that case provided, etc. against the duty, etc.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), which was once used in applications such as dry cleaning and as a fire-extinguishing agent, was regulated in 1987 under the Montreal Protocol along with other chlorofluorocarbons that destroy ozone and contribute to the ozone hole over Antarctica.

(Ozone-depleting compound persists, NASA)

I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God's aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were devouring it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)