Extract

How to spell extract

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce extract

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does extract mean?

1. verbTo draw or pull something out, often with effort or by a deliberate process.
2. nounA concentrated substance obtained from something, or a short passage copied from a longer text.

Extract in a sentence

• verb

  The dentist had to extract the damaged tooth.

• noun

  The recipe calls for a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

• verb

  Engineers use solvents to extract oil from the seeds.

• noun

  She read a short extract from her new novel at the launch.

Where does extract come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin extrahere, meaning literally 'to draw out' or 'to pull out', built from the prefix ex- ('out') and the verb trahere ('to draw, drag or pull'). The past participle of extrahere was extractus, and it is that stem that English took up in the early 1400s, at first in the sense of pulling something out by force. The same trahere root is hidden inside a whole family of everyday words, including 'tractor' (something that pulls), 'attract' (to draw toward), 'subtract' (to draw away) and 'contract' (to draw together), which is why all of them carry the spelling -tract. The noun sense, meaning a concentrated substance drawn out from a plant or a passage copied out of a longer text, grew naturally from the same idea of drawing something out. Because the c and the t both belong to that solid -tract ending, the spelling is more regular than it sounds, even though the unstressed vowels can mislead the ear.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• tract (from Latin trahere: to draw or pull)