believed to extinct vs believed to become extinct

Both phrases are correct, but they are used in slightly different contexts. 'Believed to be extinct' is commonly used to refer to a current state of extinction, while 'believed to become extinct' implies a future possibility of extinction.

Last updated: March 26, 2024 • 562 views

This phrase is incorrect. 'Extinct' should be followed by 'be' to form a grammatically correct sentence.

"believed to extinct"

The correct phrase is 'believed to be extinct,' which is used to describe something that is thought to be no longer in existence.

Show examples from the web [+]

Beings who have more than 65 million years and believed to be extinct.
Agostina camped for 17 months without human contact in the Bar-She cave near Lake Te-Anin on South Island, New Zealand, where a colony of notorni, a ratite long believed to be extinct, had unexpectedly turned up in 1948.
I thought to extinct a bombmaker would be a good thing.
The elixir believed to grant everlasting life.
Believed to be in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area.
Other information: believed to be in Afghanistan/Pakistan border area.
Believed to be in Afghanistan/Pakistan border area.
Convicted serial killer Joe Carroll's son is believed to have been abducted...
Of those who were believed to be worthy to face the darkness.
Currently believed to be in the possession of one Mortimer Fassbinder.
Everyone you believed to love you.
Multiple witnesses report seeing what they believed to be a kidnapping in Lakeside Park.
You have always done what you believed to be right.
Then a man believed to be Mangosta resurfaced.
He's believed to be one of the missing prisoners.
He received an order he believed to be authentic.
Nicholas Eastman and Haley Peterson are believed to be traveling on foot and should not be approached.
Suspect still believed to be at premises.
Joe Carroll and his followers are believed to be inside along with hostages.
I'd abandoned everything I believed to please a worthless man.

Alternatives:

believed to be extinct

This phrase is correct and implies a future possibility of extinction.

"believed to become extinct"

'Believed to become extinct' is used to indicate the belief that something will go extinct in the future.

Show examples from the web [+]

I just don't wish to become extinct.
If that were true, we would cease fighting all battles and simply allow ourselves to become extinct.
Your entire bloodlines, Rumancek, Godfrey, are about to become extinct.
Where cod alone is concerned, stocks are down to a third of the minimum volume recommended by scientific experts if this species is not to become extinct.
Look, if you're the size of three school busses and you can't save yourself, you deserve to become extinct.
We have no significant predators, we're the masters of our physical environment; the things that normally cause species to become extinct are no longer any threat to us.
Why would anyone buy into a currency that's about to become extinct?
Actually, in the Victorian era, chaps used to go off, when something was about to become extinct, they would go off, find it and shoot it as a trophy.
Why would anyone buy into a currency that's about to become extinct?
And that if we don't do that, the antithesis, although we've heard otherwise, is we're really going to become extinct, because we're feeding our children to death.
Every living thing, sooner or later, becomes extinct.
Every living thing, sooner or later, becomes extinct.
And to think that in 30, 40 years they could become extinct.
Therefore laws themselves could eventually become extinct.
As Mr Borg said, three species become extinct on our planet every hour.
Species may become extinct before scientists even have a chance to identify them.
If pregnancies lasted more than nine months, the human race would have become extinct.
It's very difficult to say what would have happened if the large dinosaurs of the Mesozoic era didn't become extinct.
Projections are that we could lose polar bears; they could become extinct in the next 50 to 100 years.
In Africa, in the year 2000, at least one species of Red Colobus monkey might have become extinct due to hunting.

Alternatives:

expected to become extinct
predicted to become extinct
likely to become extinct
thought to become extinct
projected to become extinct

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believed to extinct vs believed to become extinct