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  1. extirpate love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To pull up by the roots.
  2. v. To destroy totally; exterminate. See Synonyms at abolish.
  3. v. To remove by surgery.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To pull up by the roots; root out; eradicate; get rid of; expel; destroy totally: as, to extirpate weeds or noxious plants from a field; to extirpate cancer or a tumor; to extirpate a sect; to extirpate error or heresy.
  2. Synonyms To uproot, exterminate, abolish, annihilate.

Wiktionary

  1. v. transitive, obsolete To clear an area of roots and stumps.
  2. v. transitive To pull up by the roots; uproot.
  3. v. transitive To destroy completely; to annihilate.
  4. v. transitive To surgically remove.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To pluck up by the stem or root; to root out; to eradicate, literally or figuratively; to destroy wholly

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. destroy completely, as if down to the roots
  2. v. surgically remove (an organ)
  3. v. pull up by or as if by the roots

Etymologies

  1. From Latin exstirpō ("uproot"), from ex- ("out of") + stirps ("the lower part of the trunk of a tree, including the roots; the stem, stalk") (Wiktionary)
  2. Latin exstirpāre, exstirpāt- : ex-, ex- + stirps, root. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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Lists

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  • rolig "At the same time white settlements were growing, of fascinatingly different character, from Canada with its fractious French, to Australia and its origins as a huge prison camp, to the model colony of New Zealand with its sturdy free farmers. In each case, the creation of what would one day be prosperous liberal democracies involved the expropriation and sometimes the extirpation of the indigenous inhabitants, a process openly welcomed by some intelligent and supposedly enlightened Englishmen in the name of progress."

    – Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "Little Britain" (review of The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781–1997, by Piers Brendon), New York Times (21 Nov 2008). Nov 22, 2008

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‘extirpate’ has been looked up 4483 times, loved by 12 people, added to 106 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 18.