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Extinction

Life And Death
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The complete disappearance of a species, lineage, or form of life. In poetry, it joins personal mortality to ecological loss.

Detailed Definition
Extinction describes the irreversible end of a species or, more broadly, the vanishing of a living kind, language, culture, or way of being. Poets use it to enlarge the theme of death beyond the individual body, showing mortality at planetary scale. Images of empty nests, absent animal calls, ruined habitats, and vanished names can make extinction a subject of grief, warning, and ethical responsibility.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem about extinction may mourn a vanished species while linking its loss to human responsibility; Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish" can help students consider how close observation grants an animal dignity, even though it is not an extinction poem; A poet might list extinct birds and plants to make absence tangible through specific names; Extinction can also be metaphorical, as when a speaker fears the extinction of a language, craft, or family memory
Additional Notes
Extinction expands mortality from an individual death to the loss of a species or ecosystem. Ecopoetry often uses it to connect grief, human responsibility, deep time, endangered language, and environmental change.
Also Known As
Annihilation Die-Out Disappearance Oblivion
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