endling

endling

English

Etymology

end +‎ -ling, suggested in a 1996 issue of the magazine Nature.[1]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛndlɪŋ/

Noun

endling (plural endlings)

1. (rare) The last individual of its species or subspecies, which therefore becomes extinct upon its death.
   • 2002, SEJ Journal

     The last known survivor, the endling of its species, is now stuffed and mounted in a museum in the remote, dusty city of Nukus.

   • 2012 June 27, Helen Lewis, “Sense of an endling”, in New Statesman‎, archived from the original on 2012-07-11:

     Endlings are also recorded for the quagga, an equine with zebra-like stripes on its front half, which died in 1883 in a zoo in Amsterdam; a Caspian tiger killed in the 1950s in Uzbekistan; and whichever of a pair of great auks killed in 1844 off the coast of Iceland died second.

   • 2017, B. J. Hollars, Flock Together: A Love Affair with Extinct Birds (page 106)

     It feels as if I'm the last one left—a human endling—the world turned silent beneath my boots.

Translations

last individual

French: dernier spécimen recensé m

References

1. Robert M. Webster; Bruce Erickson (April 1996), “The last word?”, in Nature‎, volume 380, issue 6573, DOI:10.1038/380386c0, ISSN 1476-4687, page 386–386: “We therefore propose that ‘endling’ be adopted to designate a person or one of a species that is the last of a lineage in his/her/its line.”

Anagrams

• eldning, lending