How to Use extinguish in a Sentence

extinguish

verb
  • The fire department was called in to extinguish the blaze.
  • He extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray.
  • News of the conflict extinguished our hopes for a peaceful resolution.
  • They ruthlessly extinguished all resistance.
  • The fastest way to extinguish a fire depends on the type and size of the fire.
    Jim Baird, Field & Stream, 28 June 2023
  • The fire was extinguished and no one was harmed, the spokesperson said.
    Louis Casiano, Fox News, 14 Mar. 2025
  • The fire chief and the head of the firefighters union later said that the fire was extinguished.
    Jon Schuppe, NBC News, 19 Sep. 2023
  • All traffic was stopped in Bore 1 and Bore 2 while crews worked to extinguish the fire and clear the scene.
    Jason Green, Mercury News, 23 Apr. 2025
  • No one was inside the shack at the time and the fire was extinguished by 5:30 p.m., county fire said.
    Bay City News, The Mercury News, 8 Jan. 2024
  • But the follow-up post failed to extinguish the anger that the initial post had caused.
    Bradford Betz, Fox News, 7 Dec. 2021
  • Much of it had been damaged by the fire or the effort to extinguish it.
    Tim Stelloh, NBC News, 12 Apr. 2024
  • Words are not enough to extinguish the pain of these actions.
    Carol Robinson | Crobinson@al.com, al, 15 Feb. 2022
  • The boy’s clothes caught fire, and a neighbor wrapped a blanket around him to extinguish the flames.
    From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 11 Aug. 2021
  • Crews quickly stopped the spread and worked for hours to extinguish hot spots.
    Phil Diehl, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Apr. 2025
  • After failing to extinguish the blaze, Wilke and his team fled the scene.
    Lauren Markham, Harper’s Magazine , 20 July 2022
  • We’d be sent out on motor cars to extinguish the flames.
    Graydon Carter, The Atlantic, 14 Mar. 2025
  • Her actions helped to extinguish the bright light that was Till.
    Peniel Joseph, CNN, 22 July 2022
  • Firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze that had run along the length of the attic.
    Amaris Encinas, The Arizona Republic, 18 May 2022
  • The study said the public must be taught to roll someone to extinguish clothes that were on fire.
    Petula Dvorak, Washington Post, 14 Nov. 2022
  • To extinguish this fire with no loss of life and no injuries.
    Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas, chicagotribune.com, 30 June 2021
  • The railroad said the fire had been extinguished by 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
    Josh Funk, Fortune, 15 Sep. 2023
  • Braun yanked the sweater off, extinguishing the flames in one lucky swoop.
    Matt Donnelly, Variety, 3 May 2023
  • The man who helped try to extinguish the fire died along with his wife, Doubleday said.
    Jasmine Hilton, Washington Post, 3 Mar. 2023
  • It was extinguished five hours later, and the house was a total loss, the report says.
    NBC news, 27 Apr. 2023
  • The fire would have been caught in time to be extinguished with the firefighting equipment on board.
    Vicki Moore, The Mercury News, 16 Jan. 2024
  • The fire took about 10 minutes to extinguish, and no one was injured.
    Mike Danahey, Chicago Tribune, 28 Mar. 2023
  • Roden said there was a fire in the kitchen and some hot spots in the duct work that firefighters worked to extinguish.
    Bob Dohr, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 20 Oct. 2021
  • Key to that is the prompt use of aircraft, which enables ground crews to then go in and extinguish the fires, Fennessy said.
    Los Angeles Times, 26 June 2021
  • Children should be monitored while fires are lit and make sure all flames are extinguished when the pit is no longer in use.
    Bailey Berg, Architectural Digest, 6 June 2025
  • While auras may come from the realm of pseudoscience, all living beings do emit a faint light, invisible to the human eye—one that is extinguished upon death.
    Ian Randall, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 May 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'extinguish.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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