extinguishing

verb

present participle of extinguish
1
as in choking
to cause to cease burning the fire in the skillet was quickly extinguished by slamming the lid on

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in destroying
to bring to a complete end the physical soundness, existence, or usefulness of a fatal blunder that extinguished all hope that the team would actually win the play-offs

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in shushing
to stop the noise or speech of her final, telling point extinguished her opponents on the city council

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of extinguishing Her passion for Pol is a flare, burning brightly and extinguishing quickly. — Literary Hub, 5 Oct. 2026 Chinese authorities have tightened their grip on the media, the legal profession, and civil society, limiting the space for Chinese citizens to discuss mounting social woes and extinguishing emerging calls for deeper political reform. — Carl Minzner, Foreign Affairs, 5 Oct. 2026 Crews continued mopping up the fire Monday, strengthening containment lines and extinguishing hot spots at least 300 feet inside the perimeter. — Sacbee.com, 21 Sep. 2026 Since then, southern Italians have attributed all sorts of miracles to his intercession, including extinguishing the volcanic fires of Mount Vesuvius in 1631. — Clare Whitton, The Conversation, 17 Sep. 2026 After extinguishing the blaze, authorities found two people dead inside a 2019 McLaren. — Latoya Gayle, PEOPLE, 14 Sep. 2026 At least three firefighting planes, nine helicopters, 169 fire extinguishing trucks and more than 1,000 firefighters were deployed, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. — ABC News, 9 Sep. 2026 In the aftermath of the massacre, around 258 claims were filed, but the government later enacted the Indemnity Act of 1961, shielding officials from legal liability and extinguishing the claims. — Michelle Gumede, Los Angeles Times, 3 Sep. 2026 Firefighters were then able to contain the fire to a single room, extinguishing the blaze in approximately 15 minutes after crews arrived. — Ana Maria Soler, CBS News, 22 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for extinguishing
  1. choking
  2. destroying
  3. shushing
  4. quenching
  5. demolishing
  6. silencing
  7. blanketing
  8. ruining
Verb
  • Biddy covered most of the journey on foot—the equivalent of about six million steps—herding animals at the rear of her owner’s wagon company and choking her way through a moving screen of dust kicked up by the migrant caravan.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 15 Oct. 2026
  • On top of store closures and unsold inventory, the company was choking on enormous debt from a private equity buyout in 2014.
    — Phil Wahba, Fortune, 10 Oct. 2026
Definition of choking
Verb
  • One crab can eat more than 40 juvenile soft-shell clams in a day, while also destroying seagrass habitats.
    — Victoria Malloy, Time, 21 Oct. 2026
  • And then a seven-hour-long GRB came along—acting like a Death Star whose planet-destroying beam refused to switch off—that defied all explanation.
    — Robin George Andrews, Scientific American, 20 Oct. 2026
Definition of destroying
Verb
  • Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim went to 3-0 for the week with a crowd-shushing rally from 2 down to a 2-and-1 victory over Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 26 Sep. 2026
  • Trae Young won Madison Square Garden’s undying enmity in the 2021 playoffs for the Atlanta Hawks, punctuating game-breaking shots by shushing the crowd or bowing to the fans and waving goodbye.
    — Leah Asmelash, CNN Money, 9 June 2026
Definition of shushing
Verb
  • Hersh was a curious, radical listener who dreamt of quenching his wanderlust by traveling the world.
    — Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Time, 6 Oct. 2026
  • Expect art displays from local artists and makers, live music and performances, mouthwatering grub, and a thirst-quenching beer and margarita booth.
    — Ashlyn Ware, Midwest Living, 15 Sep. 2026
Definition of quenching
Verb
  • The district selected a redevelopment proposal this year that would include demolishing the school and building single-family homes.
    — Chris Higgins, Kansas City Star, 20 Oct. 2026
  • The 18-year-old female elephant got loose from her handler outside her enclosure, then went on the run, demolishing the door of a saloon on North Avenue, smashing in the window of another and walking through the fence around a vacant lot.
    — Kori Rumore, Chicago Tribune, 18 Oct. 2026
Definition of demolishing
Verb
  • Added to the violence of destruction and looting is the less visible but equally devastating violence of silencing.
    — Ollivier Pourriol, Vanity Fair, 19 Oct. 2026
  • Jasper, in Chicago, understands the risk of silencing those hunger cues.
    — Anna Cooban, CNN Money, 15 Oct. 2026
Definition of silencing
Verb
  • The back end of the defense has limited gashing throws since the Purdue game, and has made the simple passes difficult with defensive backs blanketing pass catchers in coverage across the field.
    — Connor Dullinger, Los Angeles Times, 19 Oct. 2026
  • Here, flood maps do record the risk from obvious threats like hurricanes, with high-risk zones blanketing the area.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 29 Sep. 2026
Definition of blanketing
Verb
  • As wet electrodes get thicker, the liquid binder migrates unevenly during drying, ruining the battery‘s structure.
    — Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 30 Sep. 2026
  • Seaver also allegedly threatened to start a podcast dedicated to ruining Parton’s image unless he was paid.
    — Allison DeGrushe, StyleCaster, 28 Sep. 2026
Definition of ruining

Browse Nearby Words

extinguishes
extinguishing
extirpate
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Cite this Entry

“Extinguishing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/extinguishing. Accessed 21 Oct. 2026.

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