exterminate
verb
Did you know?
Originally, to exterminate something was to banish it or drive it away. And it is this meaning that can be found in the Latin origin of "exterminate." "Exterminate" comes from "exterminatus," the past participle of exterminare, meaning "to drive beyond the boundaries." The Latin word exterminare was formed from the prefix ex- ("out of" or "outside") and "terminus" ("boundary"). Not much more than a century after its introduction to English, "exterminate" came to denote destroying or utterly putting an end to something. And that's the use with which the word is usually employed today.
Examples of exterminate in a Sentence
Scott Travers, Forbes.com, 26 Apr. 2025
When Sydney attempts to exterminate his little brother’s personal collection of creepy crawlies, Slade is mysteriously shrunken down and thrust into the center of a minuscule, yet no less epic, struggle taking place on his front lawn.
—Josh Weiss, Forbes, 14 Jan. 2025
The German occupiers, however, acted with barbaric brutality, exterminating local Jewish populations and starving to death approximately two million Soviet prisoners of war by March 1942.
—Foreign Affairs, 25 Feb. 2025
This early generation of Soviet spies was mostly exterminated during Stalin’s purges of the 1930s.
—Foreign Affairs, 25 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for exterminate
Cite this Entry
“Exterminate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exterminate. Accessed 3 May. 2025.
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exterminate
verb
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