Exact

How to spell exact

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce exact

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does exact mean?

1. adjectiveCompletely accurate, precise, and correct in every detail.
2. verbTo demand and obtain something, especially payment, by force or authority.

Exact in a sentence

• adjective

  The recipe calls for the exact amount of butter.

• verb

  The warlord would exact a heavy tribute from every village he passed.

• adjective

  She copied the figures into the spreadsheet in their exact order.

• verb

  The contract allows the landlord to exact a penalty for late rent.

Where does exact come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb exigere, which combined ex meaning 'out' with agere meaning 'to drive' or 'to do', so it literally described driving something out or weighing it out completely. From that came the past participle exactus, carrying the sense of something measured precisely or accurately demanded. English took it up in the late 1400s and 1500s, first as a verb meaning to force out or demand payment, and then as an adjective meaning strictly accurate or precise. The same agere root sits inside a whole family of English words such as 'act', 'agent', and 'agile', which is a useful reminder that the spelling ends in -act rather than the -ackt or -axt a speaker might guess from sound. Because the opening syllable is an unstressed schwa, writers sometimes hesitate over the vowel, but the ex- prefix keeps it reliably spelled with an e.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• act (from agere: to drive, do); literally 'driven out, weighed out precisely'