Definition of "extinguishment"

extinguishment

noun
countable and uncountable, plural extinguishments
1. The act of extinguishing, putting out, or quenching, or the state of being extinguished.
  Quotations
  […] surely there have been atrocities which demanded of the white man the punishment of the evil-doer; but far more have been the starvings and the flights and the extinguishments which have visited the Indian, for the offence of living […]
  1868, Margaret Carrington, Ab-Sa-Ra-Ka, Land of Massacre
2. (law) The annihilation or extinction of a right or obligation.