Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

mass extinction

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.73 in modern English

Syllables: mass ex-tinc-tion
IPA

25

Scrabble Score

14

Letters

3

Syllables

10

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A sharp decrease in the total number of species in a relatively short period of time; specifically, a loss of ∼75% of all species on the planet over a geologically interval of less than 3 million years, as a result of a mass extinction event.

Countable; Uncountable

Example Sentences

"Preceded by five other mass extinctions and many more small extinction events, the mass extinction currently underway is, on the one hand, like all the others in that it is nothing other than a significant reduction in the number of individual organisms inhabiting the planet and at the same time a significant reduction in the diversity of species made up by those individual organisms."

Usage

Inflected Forms

mass extinctions (plural)

Phrases

end-Triassic mass extinction Permian-Triassic mass extinction Triassic-Jurassic extinction event

Synonyms

mass extinction event extinction event extinction level event

Questions

What does mass extinction mean?: A sharp decrease in the total number of species in a relatively short period of time; specifically, a loss of ∼75% of all species on the planet over a geologically interval of less than 3 million years, as a result of a mass extinction event.

How to pronounce mass extinction

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