How to Use extirpate in a Sentence

extirpate

verb
  • The gray wolf is believed to have been extirpated from the state in the 1920s.
    — Suzanne Espinosa Solis, SFChronicle.com, 15 Apr. 2020
  • Before then, gray wolves had been extirpated from the state since the 1920s.
    — Katie Hill, Outdoor Life, 21 Nov. 2024
  • Each species had been extirpated or nearly so over the last 150 years but in recent decades returned to robust numbers.
    — Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 27 Sep. 2017
  • The site notes that the red wolf was extirpated from Alabama — meaning it was destroyed or completely removed from the state.
    — Nick Patterson, al, 26 Jan. 2023
  • The modern left’s mission to extirpate sin from society is the product of a secular religion of the most austere sort.
    — Gerard Baker, WSJ, 21 Dec. 2020
  • The way to extirpate this bias is by realizing that the concept of death is not an all-or-nothing matter, but rather a spectrum—something that comes in degrees.
    — Susana Monsó, TIME, 18 Oct. 2024
  • In the Southern Ocean, blue whales were almost extirpated in the 1920s.
    — National Geographic, 5 Apr. 2016
  • Wolves were extirpated from the state in the 1940s mainly because of their depredation of livestock.
    — USA TODAY, 12 July 2019
  • Over a century before the idea of extinction was accepted, those who extirpated the dodo did not keep detailed records of the bird’s decline.
    — Brian Switek, WIRED, 12 Dec. 2011
  • The bird is considered extirpated, or nearly extinct, in the Garden State.
    — Frank Kummer, Philly.com, 2 May 2018
  • Leaders who attempt to take a moderate stance run the risk of being publicly lynched by those who insist that Chavismo is an evil that must be extirpated.
    — Ivan Briscoe, Foreign Affairs, 2 July 2019
  • Neandertals are finally expiring as a species in the face of the advance of modern humans, who marginalize and extirpate all those who came before.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 14 July 2010
  • The species flourished after its chief predator, the grizzly, was extirpated there, in the early twentieth century.
    — Paige Williams, The New Yorker, 25 Nov. 2024
  • The bears were extirpated, or intentionally eliminated from an area, decades ago.
    — Eva Flowe may 20, Charlotte Observer, 20 May 2026
  • Wolves were extirpated from California in 1924, and are just now starting to enter the state again.
    — Eduardo Medina, SFChronicle.com, 5 July 2019
  • It's believed the last wolves in California were extirpated by the 1920s.
    — NPR, 26 Oct. 2025
  • The Ottomans did manage to extirpate the Armenian community from their lands.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 26 Sep. 2010
  • Though otters were never completely extirpated from Pennsylvania, the state park says their numbers were vastly reduced.
    — Madeline Bartos, CBS News, 20 Jan. 2026
  • For some 50 years, the two main predators of moose--wolves and grizzlies--have been absent from the southern portion of the Yellowstone ecosystem, extirpated by humans.
    — Mark Wheeler, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2019
  • The animals are native to Wisconsin, but were extirpated by the late 1800s due to overhunting and changes to their habitat.
    — Chelsey Lewis, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9 Oct. 2017
  • The seals had been extirpated from New England by the early 1960s, largely a result of culling by commercial fishers.
    — Jim Behnke, Scientific American, 2 July 2023
  • Over a century earlier sea otters, another key urchin predator, were extirpated by the fur trade, leaving the system precariously reliant on sea stars alone.
    — Tatjana Baleta, Time, 28 May 2026
  • Brave nonconformists across Cuban civil society, whom the regime is determined to extirpate, are merely collateral damage in a wider war against the values of the West.
    — Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, 12 June 2022
  • The wolf is native to Wisconsin but was extirpated by the 1960s after decades of unregulated hunting and bounties.
    — Paul A. Smith, Journal Sentinel, 29 Apr. 2023
  • Wolves were extirpated in California in the 1920s and only recently began to rebound.
    — Lila Seidman, Los Angeles Times, 19 Feb. 2025
  • The animals are also making inroads into parts of western Oregon where they’ve been extirpated for decades, including a new pack in Lane and Douglas counties.
    — oregonlive, 16 Apr. 2020
  • Mountain lions were native to Arkansas until about 1920, when they were extirpated from the state through unregulated hunting and habitat loss.
    — Bryan Hendricks, Arkansas Online, 9 Oct. 2025
  • The Sonoran pronghorn was extirpated from its range in California by the 1950s due to overhunting, fencing and water source development.
    — Jake Frederico, The Arizona Republic, 3 Mar. 2023
  • The plain fact of the matter is that violent leftist revolutionaries of the kind that Salazar promised to extirpate in Portugal are nowhere to be seen on the American political landscape today.
    — Cameron Hilditch, National Review, 12 Aug. 2021
  • Over the next several decades, a roll call of Pennsylvania’s native animals would be extirpated, including mountain lions, wolves, wolverines, badgers, pine marten, and fisher cats; whitetail deer were nearly wiped out of the state, as were black bears and turkeys.
    — Literary Hub, 10 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'extirpate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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