extirpate

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The Word of the Day for July 23 is:

extirpate   \EK-ster-payt\   verb
     1 *a : to destroy completely : wipe out  b : to pull up by the root
     2 : to cut out by surgery

Example sentence: 
     By insisting that he has a plan to extirpate crime and corruption in our 
cities, the governor might have bitten off more than he can chew.

Did you know?
     If we do a little digging, we discover that "extirpate" finds its roots 
in, well, roots (and stumps). Early English uses of the word in the 16th 
century carried the meaning of "to clear of stumps" or "to pull something up by 
the root." "Extirpate" grew out of a combination of the Latin prefix "ex-" and 
the Latin noun "stirps," meaning "trunk" or "root." The word "stirp" itself 
remains rooted in our own language as a term meaning "a line descending from a 
common ancestor." 

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.






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