darwin out

verb

To remove (a person) from the gene pool when they engage in foolish, thoughtless, or reckless behavior.

Meanings

darwin out1

verbdarwin out (third-person singular simple present darwins out, present participle darwining out or darwinning out, simple past and past participle darwined out or darwinned out)

present singular third person darwins out · participle present darwining out · participle present darwinning out · participle past darwined out · past darwined out · participle past darwinned out · past darwinned out

  1. Alternative letter-case form of Darwin out

Darwin out2

verbDarwin out (third-person singular simple present Darwins out, present participle Darwining out or Darwinning out, simple past and past participle Darwined out or Darwinned out)

present singular third person Darwins out · participle present Darwining out · participle present Darwinning out · participle past Darwined out · past Darwined out · participle past Darwinned out · past Darwinned out · alternative darwin out

  1. derogatoryhumorousslanguncommonTo remove (a person) from the gene pool when they engage in foolish, thoughtless, or reckless behavior.

    See above. The problem (dunderheadedness) has been precisely pointed out, and the solution (darwinning out the dross) is happening as we speak.

    2004 December 6, fasgnādh, “Re: PM advocates special treatment for aborigines”, in alt.atheism (Usenet)
    4 more examples

    Let's face it, it's just not possible. A guy like that in The Bronx could never make it to the age where he could get a license. He'd be Darwinned-out before he was twelve.

    1979, Gerald Rosen, The Carmen Miranda Memorial Flagpole, A Novel, page 94

    Ah, that's intent again. Selection pressure darwins out that which is not best fitted to survive, but a new mutation is by definition yet to be filtered in this way, so all bets are off :-)

    2003 March 9, cquirke, “excuses, excuses, excuses...”, in alt.comp.virus (Usenet)

    The prisoners who'd survived, we later learned, had done so only by killing, stacking, and standing on the bodies of the ones that hadn't, which meant that nature had Darwinned out all but the meanest of the mean and the toughest of tough.

    2008, Jonathan Nasaw, Twenty-Seven Bones, The Most Terrifying Novel You Will Read this Year

    I know you're not meant to cut toward yourself, and that fatal instinct should have been Darwined out by now, but it does provide a small “geometric design error” component to my injury story, a point my attorney might well use, should we decide later to sue the human body factory.

    2012, Lawrence W. Baggett, In the Dark on the Sunny Side: A Memoir of an Out-of-Sight Mathematician, page 17

Origin

An allusion to Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

darwin out. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/darwin%20out

MLA

“darwin out.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/darwin%20out. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “darwin out,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/darwin%20out.

Source: darwin out on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.