extract
Pronunciation
  • (noun) enPR: ĕks'trăkt, IPA: /ˈɛkstɹækt/
  • (verb) enPR: ĭkstrăkt', IPA: /ɪksˈtɹækt/, IPA: /ɛksˈtɹækt/
Noun

extract (plural extracts)

  1. Something that is extracted or drawn out.
  2. A portion of a book or document, incorporated distinctly in another work; a citation; a quotation.
    I used an extract of Hemingway's book to demonstrate culture shock.
  3. A decoction, solution, or infusion made by drawing out from any substance that which gives it its essential and characteristic virtue
    extract of beef
    extract of dandelion
  4. Any substance extracted is such a way, and characteristic of that from which it is obtained
    quinine is the most important extract of Peruvian bark.
  5. A solid preparation obtained by evaporating a solution of a drug, etc., or the fresh juice of a plant (distinguished from an abstract).
  6. (obsolete) A peculiar principle (fundamental essence) once erroneously supposed to form the basis of all vegetable extracts.
  7. Ancestry; descent.
  8. A draft or copy of writing; a certified copy of the proceedings in an action and the judgment therein, with an order for execution.
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Verb

extract (extracts, present participle extracting; past extracted, past participle extracted)

  1. (transitive) To draw out; to pull out; to remove forcibly from a fixed position, as by traction or suction, etc.
    to extract a tooth from its socket, a stump from the earth, or a splinter from the finger
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book 5”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:
      The bee / Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet.
  2. (transitive) To withdraw by expression, distillation, or other mechanical or chemical process. Compare abstract (transitive verb).
    to extract an essential oil from a plant
  3. (transitive) To take by selection; to choose out; to cite or quote, as a passage from a book.
    • 1724, Jonathan Swift, Drapier's Letters, 4
      I have thought it proper to extract out of that pamphlet a few of those notorious falsehoods.
  4. (transitive) To select parts of a whole
    We need to try to extract the positives from the defeat.
  5. (transitive, arithmetic) To determine (a root of a number).
    Please extract the cube root of 27.
Synonyms Translations Translations


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