Definition of "extirpate" in English

verb

1. (transitive, obsolete) To clear an area of roots and stumps.

2. (transitive) To pull up by the roots; uproot.

3. (transitive) To destroy completely; to annihilate.

4. (biology) To cause a population to go extinct in a particular region, but not across the entire range of the species or subspecies.

   • The cougar was extirpated across nearly all of its eastern North American range in the two centuries after European colonization.

5. (transitive) To surgically remove.

adjective

1. (as a participle) Extirpated

2. (as a participial adjective) Rooted out, extinct, utterly destroyed.