This week we continue our vocabulary-building series, “The Closing Word.” Each week we provide a new word to help build your vocabulary and show you an example of how to use it.
This week’s closing word:
extirpate
Pronounced: (ECK-stir-pate)
Verb:
1. destroy completely, as if down to the roots
2. pull up by or as if by the roots
3. surgically remove (an organ)
From Vocabulary.com: “Use the verb extirpate when you mean to destroy completely or get rid of completely. You can try to extirpate all the bedbugs that came home with you from your vacation, but you will probably be afraid that some resisted the exterminator to munch on you later.”
Example:
“If we don’t extirpate the kudzu taking over the neighborhood, we could lose a lot of our native plants.”
