different between wreck vs extinction

English

Etymology

From Middle English wrek, from Anglo-Norman wrek, from Old Norse *wrek (Norwegian and Icelandic rek, Swedish vrak), from Proto-Germanic *wrekan?, whence also Old English wrecan (English wreak), Old High German rehhan, Old Saxon wrekan, Gothic ???????????????????????? (wrikan).

Pronunciation

• enPR: r?k, IPA^(key): /???k/
• Rhymes: -?k

Noun

wreck (plural wrecks)

1. Something or someone that has been ruined.

   He was an emotional wreck after the death of his wife.

   Synonym: basket case, mess

2. The remains of something that has been severely damaged or worn down.
   • 1779, William Cowper, Retirement

     To the fair haven of my native home, / The wreck of what I was, fatigued I come.

3. An event in which something is damaged through collision.

   • the wrecks of matter and the crush of worlds

   • Hard and obstinate / As is a rock amidst the raging floods, / 'Gainst which a ship, of succour desolate, / Doth suffer wreck, both of herself and goods.

   • 1883, John Richard Green, The Conquest of England

     Its intellectual life was thus able to go on amidst the wreck of its political life.

4. (law) Goods, etc. cast ashore by the sea after a shipwreck.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Bouvier to this entry?)

Synonyms

• crash
• ruins

Derived terms

• catch wreck
• shipwreck
• train wreck

Translations

Verb

wreck (third-person singular simple present wrecks, present participle wrecking, simple past and past participle wrecked)

1. To destroy violently; to cause severe damage to something, to a point where it no longer works, or is useless.

   He wrecked the car in a collision.

   That adulterous hussy wrecked my marriage!

2. To ruin or dilapidate.
3. (Australia) To dismantle wrecked vehicles or other objects, to reclaim any useful parts.
4. To involve in a wreck; hence, to cause to suffer ruin; to balk of success, and bring disaster on.

   • Weak and envy'd, if they should conspire, / They wreck themselves, and he hath his Desire.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:destroy

Antonyms

• build
• construct
• make
• produce

Derived terms

• bewreck
• wrecker
• wreckage

Translations

References

Yola

Noun

wreck

1. Alternative form of rocke

English

Etymology

From late Middle English, borrowed from Latin extinctio (“extinction, annihilation”), from extinguere, past participle extinctus (“to extinguish”); see extinguish.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?st??k??n/

Noun

extinction (countable and uncountable, plural extinctions)

1. The action of making or becoming extinct; annihilation.
2. (astronomy) The absorption or scattering of electromagnetic radiation emitted by astronomical objects by intervening dust and gas before it reaches the observer.
3. (pathology) The inability to perceive multiple stimuli simultaneously.
4. (psychology) The fading of a conditioned response over time if it is not reinforced.

Related terms

• extinctionism
• extinctionist
• extinct
• extinguish
• hemiextinction

Translations

References

• extinction in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• extinction in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• ctenitoxin

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin extincti?, extincti?nem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k.st??k.sj??/

Noun

extinction f (plural extinctions)

1. extinction

Related terms

• éteint

Further reading

• “extinction” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).