eradicate
English
WOTD – 18 July 2007
Etymology 1
PIE word |
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*wréh₂ds |
From Middle English eradicaten (“to eradicate”), from eradicat(e) (“eradicated”, past participle of eradicaten) + -en (verb-forming suffix), borrowed from Latin ērādīcātus, the perfect passive participle of ērādīcō (“to uproot, root out; to anihilate, eradicate”), from ē- (“out”) + rādīx (“root”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). See also radish.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ɪˈɹæd.ɪ.keɪt/
Audio (US): (file) Audio (General Australian): (file)
Verb
eradicate (third-person singular simple present eradicates, present participle eradicating, simple past and past participle eradicated)
- (transitive) To pull up by the roots.
- (transitive) To destroy completely; to reduce to nothing radically; to put an end to.
- Synonyms: annihilate, eliminate, exterminate, extirpate; see also Thesaurus:destroy
- Antonyms: encourage, foster, introduce, protect, radicate
- Near-synonyms: delete, erase
- Smallpox was globally eradicated in 1980.
- 1986 April 26, Tony Marcus Antuan Haywood, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, page 18:
- I would like to know if there are any true moralists who would like to correspond with someone who just instinctively feels there's something wrong somewhere in this unbenevolent world and wants to save it by culminating love and eradicating the captive emotions of the self (Ego).
- 1989 September 20, Janet Maslin, “Review/Film; Sutherland Catches On To Apartheid Slowly”, in The New York Times[1]:
- Thus far, virtually every cinematic attempt to convey the outrages of South African life under apartheid has been diminished by its own good intentions and by a grim sameness that eradicates any element of surprise.
- 2007, Anastasia Goodstein, Totally Wired:
- She put a banner for the One Campaign, an effort to eradicate poverty in the third world led by U2's singer Bono, on her LJ […]
- 2016, Roba Khundkar, Silva Samantha De, Rajat Chowdury, Consent in Surgery: A Practical Guide, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 89:
- The germinal matrix in this area is then eradicated either by surgical or chemical matrixectomy using phenol or NaOH.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
to pull up by the roots
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to completely destroy; to reduce to nothing radically
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Etymology 2
From Middle English eradicat(e) (“eradicated”, past participle of eradicaten), used up until Early Modern English, see -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.
Participle
eradicate
- (obsolete) eradicated
Further reading
- “eradicate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “eradicate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
Anagrams
Italian
Verb
eradicate
- inflection of eradicare:
- second-person plural present indicative
- second-person plural imperative
Participle
eradicate
- feminine plural of eradicato
Latin
Verb
ērādīcāte
- second-person plural present active imperative of ērādīcō