exterminate

Verb
Synonyms: kill offuprooteradicateextirpateroot out

WordNet 3.0

Verb (2)

  1. kill en masse; kill on a large scale; kill many“Hitler wanted to exterminate the Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and homosexuals of Europe”Synonyms: kill off
  2. destroy completely, as if down to the roots“the vestiges of political democracy were soon uprooted" "root out corruption”Synonyms: uprooteradicateextirpateroot out
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Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

Exterminate \Ex*ter"mi*nate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Exterminated; p. pr. & vb. n. Exterminating.] [L. exterminatus, p. p. of exterminare to abolish, destroy, drive out or away; ex out + terminus boundary, limit. See Term.]

1.To drive out or away; to expel. [1913 Webster]

They deposed, exterminated, and deprived him of communion.— Barrow.[1913 Webster]

2.To destroy utterly; to cut off; to extirpate; to annihilate; to root out; as, to exterminate a colony, a tribe, or a nation; to exterminate error or vice. [1913 Webster]

To explode and exterminate rank atheism.— Bentley.[1913 Webster]

3.(Math.) To eliminate, as unknown quantities. [R.] [1913 Webster]

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