extirpate
ex·tir·pate/ˈɛkstɚpeɪt/verb
extirpate is spelled E-X-T-I-R-P-A-T-E, 3 syllables: ex·tir·pate. The wrong spelling people search most is extripate: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 15 of all searches for the word. Extirpate is a verb meaning “To pull up by the roots; uproot”.
How many letters and syllables are in extirpate?
| Letters | 9: E-X-T-I-R-P-A-T-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: ex·tir·pate |
| In writing | about once in every 23 million words; the 145,125th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, extripate, about 30 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell extirpate?
Extirpate is spelled E-X-T-I-R-P-A-T-E. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for extirpate in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is extirpate?
Extirpate appears about once in every 23 million words in written English, the 145,125th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce extirpate?
- UK /ˈɛkstəpeɪt/
- US /ˈɛkstɚpeɪt/
Extirpate has 3 syllables, split ex·tir·pate in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-extirpate.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of extirpate
- extirpates present, singular, he/she/it
- extirpating participle, present
- extirpated participle, past
- more extirpate comparative
- most extirpate superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does extirpate mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
obsoleteTo clear an area of roots and stumps.
- 2
To pull up by the roots; uproot.
- 3
To destroy completely; to annihilate.
- 4
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
To surgically remove.
adjective
- 1
obsoleteExtirpated
- 2
obsoleteRooted out, extinct, utterly destroyed.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Extirpate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | déraciner, extirper , annihiler |
| German | mit den Wurzeln herausreißen, an den Wurzeln herausreißen, entwurzeln , ausrotten, austilgen, ausmerzen |
| Portuguese | extirpar |
| Spanish | extirpar, descepar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does extirpate come from?
The verb is first attested in 1538, the adjective in 1541; borrowed from Latin exstirpātus perfect passive participle of exstirpō (“to uproot”), from ex- (“out of”) + stirps (“the lower part of the trunk of a tree, including the roots; the stem, stalk”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)). Doublet of extirp. Common participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).