Also 5 -mynacion, 6 -minatione. [ad. L. exterminātiōn-em, n. of action f. extermināre: see EXTERMINATE.] The action of exterminating.
† 1. Expulsion from the bounds or limits of a country, state or community; an instance of this; banishment, excommunication. Obs.
1577. Dee, Relat. Spirits, I. (1659), 430. The Lord Rosenberg … did … advise the Emperour of his error committed in our extermination.
a. 1626. Bacon, Holy War, Wks. 1740, III. 542. Displanting and extermination of people.
1641. Vind. Smectymnuus, ix. 104. All the important businesse of the Church, whether censures or exterminations.
1660. Blount, Boscobel, II. (1680), 33. His Majesties sufferings and forced extermination.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., 272. The slaughter of the Beast, or extermination of him out of Being.
2. Putting an end to, total extirpation; utter destruction.
1549. Compl. Scot., vii. 68. To succumb hyr haistylye, in the maist extreme exterminatione.
1681. in Somers, Tracts, II. 152. Forcible pursuit against such persons, to the utter extermination of them.
1790. Han. More, Relig. Fash. World (1791), 140. The almost total extermination of religion.
1794. S. Williams, Vermont, 160. The savage aims at the ruin, destruction, and utter extermination of his enemies.
1803. Med. Jrnl., IX. 540. The Jennerian Society for the Extermination of the Small-pox.
1862. Sir B. Brodie, Psychol. Inq., II. iv. 141. One species prospers and multiplies by the extermination of another.
1867. Deutsch, Rem. (1874), 8. A new decree for the extermination of the Talmud.
3. Math. = ELIMINATION 4.
1753. in Chambers, Cycl. Supp.
1784. Waring, in Phil. Trans., LXXIV. 411. The extermination of all the terms.
1827. Hutton, Course Math., I. 256, note. Cubic equations … may usually be reduced to quadratics, by extermination.
¶ 4. Used as = TERMINATION; ending; decay.
1490. Caxton, Eneydos, xxii. (1890), 80. The owle[’s] … song termyneth in pyetous extermynacion.
1549. Compl. Scot., i. 20. Siklyik lordschips ande digniteis hes incressing, declinatione, ande exterminatione.
