extract
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: ĕk'străkt
ipa: /ˈɛkstɹækt/
enpr: ĭkstrăkt'
ipa: /ɪkˈstɹækt/
ipa: /ɛkˈstɹækt/
rhymes: -ækt
Forms: form: extracts
form: extracting
form: extracted
form: extracted
form: extraught
Etymology: Borrowed from Latin extractum, neuter perfect passive participle of extrahō, from ex- (“out of”) + trahō (“to drag”).
Senses: examples: text: to extract a tooth from its socket, a stump from the earth, or a splinter from the finger
text: The bee / Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).
ref: 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
text: There is, in fact, growing recognition in the Department that giving free rein to the open access operators will extract revenue from Great British Railways.
ref: 2025 March 5, Christian Wolmar, “GBR: just how clear are the government's objectives?”, in RAIL, number 1030, page 41:
glosses: To draw out; to pull out; to remove forcibly from a fixed position, as by traction or suction, etc.
examples: text: to extract an essential oil from a plant
text: Mostly, the microbiome is beneficial. It helps with digestion and enables people to extract a lot more calories from their food than would otherwise be possible. Research over the past few years, however, has implicated it in diseases from atherosclerosis to asthma to autism.
ref: 2013 June 29, “A punch in the gut”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, pages 72–3:
glosses: To withdraw by squeezing, distillation, or other mechanical or chemical process. Compare abstract (transitive verb).
examples: text: I have thought it proper to extract out of that pamphlet a few of those notorious falsehoods.
ref: 1724, Jonathan Swift, “Drapier's Letters”, in 4:
text: As his work is probably not easily accessible to many of my readers, I shall perhaps consult their convenience by extracting his description entire.
ref: 1900, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 332:
glosses: To choose out; to cite or quote, for example a passage from a text.
examples: text: We need to try to extract the positives from the defeat.
glosses: To select parts of a whole
examples: text: Please extract the cube root of 27.
text: […] Mr. Nackybal was thoroughly examined, both in cubing and extracting, from the table that Louit had provided.
ref: 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC:
topics: arithmetic
glosses: To determine (a root of a number).
Synonyms: sense: to draw out
word: outdraw
sense: to take by selection
word: sunder out
Derived terms: coextract
extractability
extractable
extractant
extractible
extractive
extract the Michael
extract the urine
immunoextract
nonextracted
phytoextract
postextracted
preextract
reextracted
unextracted