Extra

How to spell extra

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce extra

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does extra mean?

1. adjectiveMore than is usual, expected, or strictly needed; additional.
2. nounA person hired to appear in a crowd scene of a film or play without a speaking part.
3. adverbTo a greater degree than usual; especially.

Extra in a sentence

• adjective

  The hotel charged an extra fee for late checkout.

• noun

  He worked as an extra in several crowd scenes before landing a real role.

• adverb

  The courier was extra careful with the fragile parcel.

• adjective

  She packed an extra jumper in case the evening turned cold.

• noun

  The studio hired him as an extra in the battle sequence.

• adverb

  She ordered the coffee extra strong to stay alert.

Where does extra come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from Latin extra, an adverb and preposition meaning 'outside of' or 'beyond', itself a shortened form of the older exterā, related to exterus 'outward'. In English the modern word is widely thought to be a clipping of 'extraordinary', which literally meant 'beyond the ordinary course of things', so 'extra' came to signal anything additional or surplus. It settled into English in the late eighteenth century, first as an adjective and adverb for 'more than usual', then as a noun. The same extra- element survives at the front of many borrowed words such as 'extraordinary', 'extract', and 'extraterrestrial', all carrying the sense of something reaching beyond a normal boundary. The spelling is mercifully regular: the single trap is remembering it ends in a plain -a, not -er.

How the word is built

• extra- (Latin: outside, beyond), used here as a standalone word from extraordinary