extermination

Borrowed from Middle French extermination, itself a learned borrowing from Ecclesiastical Latin exterminātiō.

• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

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extermination (countable and uncountable, plural exterminations)

1. The act of exterminating; total destruction or eradication

   extermination of error or vice

   extermination of weeds from a field

   Depending on the case, extermination of a group of people may constitute genocide or crime against humanity.

   • 1941 January, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The Scottish Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 3:

     Caley locomotive types, especially such numerous things as McIntosh goods and tank engines, have defied extermination over a good many years now.

2. Elimination.

• (total destruction): excision

• extermination camp

Learned borrowing from Ecclesiastical Latin exterminātiōnem. By surface analysis, exterminer +‎ -ation.

• IPA^(key): /ɛk.stɛʁ.mi.na.sjɔ̃/

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extermination f (plural exterminations)

1. extermination

• camp d’extermination

• “extermination”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.