Extant

How to spell extant

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce extant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does extant mean?

1. adjectiveStill in existence; surviving, not lost or extinct.

Extant in a sentence

• The oldest extant copy of the manuscript is held in the national archive.

• Only a few extant examples of that early printing press remain in museums.

Where does extant come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin exstantem, the present participle of exstare, which literally meant 'to stand out' and so 'to be present' or 'to exist'. That verb was built from ex- meaning 'out' and stare meaning 'to stand', the same stare that lies behind 'stand', 'status' and 'stationary'. English adopted it in the late 1500s, at first simply meaning 'standing out' or 'visible', and it soon narrowed to its modern sense of 'still in existence' or 'surviving', especially of old documents, buildings and species. Notice that the spelling keeps the -ant ending of the Latin participle, which is precisely why writers slip and turn it into 'extent', a quite different word about size or degree. Holding on to the idea that something extant literally still 'stands' helps fix the -ant ending in mind.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• stant (from Latin stare, to stand)
• -t (present-participle ending)