Definition

1. Verb:
   • To destroy completely; to remove or eliminate something entirely, often as if pulling it out by the roots. This is the core meaning, emphasizing total eradication.
   • To surgically remove an organ or tissue. This is a specific medical usage.
   • To pull up by or as if by the roots. This meaning focuses on the physical act of uprooting.

Examples of Usage

• Verb:
  • The government launched a campaign to extirpate corruption from the system.
  • The surgeon had to extirpate the diseased appendix.
  • We need to extirpate these invasive weeds from the flower bed.

Advanced Usage

• "to extirpate a belief/idea": to completely eliminate a belief or ideology.
  • The regime sought to extirpate all dissenting political thought.
• "to extirpate a species": to cause the local or complete extinction of a species.
  • Hunting and habitat loss nearly extirpated the wolves from this region.

Variants and Related Words

• Extirpation (n): The act or process of extirpating.
  • The extirpation of the tumor was successful.
• Extirpator (n): A person or thing that extirpates.

Synonyms

• Eradicate: To destroy completely.
• Uproot: To pull (something) up by the roots; to remove or displace from a native environment.
• Annihilate: To destroy utterly.
• Excise: To remove by cutting out, especially surgically.
• Root out: To find and remove or destroy.

Related Phrases

• "to extirpate from": To remove something completely from a specific place or context.
  • The goal is to extirpate this harmful practice from our community.

Related Idioms

• "To pull up by the roots": This idiom is conceptually very close to the meaning of "extirpate," implying complete removal from the source.
  • The scandal was so deep that the board had to pull the corruption up by the roots. (This action is synonymous with extirpation.)

Verb

1. surgically remove (an organ)
2. pull up by or as if by the roots
   • uproot the vine that has spread all over the garden
3. destroy completely, as if down to the roots
   • the vestiges of political democracy were soon uprooted root out corruption