Word of the Day

: July 23, 2007

extirpate

verb EK-ster-payt

What It Means

1 a : to destroy completely : wipe out

b : to pull up by the root

2 : to cut out by surgery

extirpate in Context

By insisting that he has a plan to extirpate crime and corruption in our cities, the governor might have bitten off more than he can chew.

Did You Know?

If we do a little digging, we discover that "extirpate" finds its roots in, well, roots (and stumps). Early English uses of the word in the 16th century carried the meaning of "to clear of stumps" or "to pull something up by the root." "Extirpate" grew out of a combination of the Latin prefix "ex-" and the Latin noun "stirps," meaning "trunk" or "root." The word "stirp" itself remains rooted in our own language as a term meaning "a line descending from a common ancestor."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.