EXTIRPATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does extirpate mean? 

• EXTIRPATE (verb)
  The verb EXTIRPATE has 3 senses:

1. destroy completely, as if down to the roots

2. pull up by or as if by the roots

3. surgically remove (an organ)

  Familiarity information: EXTIRPATE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EXTIRPATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they extirpate    ... he / she / it extirpates   
Past simple: extirpated   
Past participle: extirpated   
-ing form: extirpating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Destroy completely, as if down to the roots

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Synonyms:

eradicate; exterminate; extirpate; root out; uproot

Context example:

root out corruption

Hypernyms (to "extirpate" is one way to...):

destroy; destruct (do away with, cause the destruction or undoing of)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

extirpation (the act of pulling up or out; uprooting; cutting off from existence)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Pull up by or as if by the roots

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

deracinate; extirpate; root out; uproot

Context example:

uproot the vine that has spread all over the garden

Hypernyms (to "extirpate" is one way to...):

displace; move (cause to move or shift into a new position or place, both in a concrete and in an abstract sense)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "extirpate"):

stub (pull up (weeds) by their roots)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

extirpation (the act of pulling up or out; uprooting; cutting off from existence)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Surgically remove (an organ)

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "extirpate" is one way to...):

remove; take; take away; withdraw (remove something concrete, as by lifting, pushing, or taking off, or remove something abstract)

Domain category:

surgery (the branch of medical science that treats disease or injury by operative procedures)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

extirpation (surgical removal of a body part or tissue)

 Context examples 

I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and strong!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)