Other forms: exacting, exacted, exacts
Exact means right down to the last detail, with nothing rounded off. The exact time is 9:47, not about ten. Her exact words, the exact spot where the keys were, the exact same shirt in a different colour.
Exact sits in front of the noun: the exact amount, the exact opposite, the exact moment the lights went out. The adverb exactly does a lot of work alone — exactly! agrees hard with someone, and not exactly disagrees gently. There is a verb too, and it is a different animal: to exact a price, exact revenge, exact a promise from someone means to force it out of them, and it belongs to serious writing. Exacting as an adjective means demanding: an exacting boss is never quite satisfied. The noun is exactness, though precision is the commoner word.
1adjectiveexactCorrect in every detail; not rounded off or approximate.~91%
“Can you tell me the exact cost before I agree?”
2adjectivenounUsed before a noun to stress that this is the very thing meant.~7%
“That is the exact opposite of what I asked for.”
3verbextractTo demand and get something from someone by force or authority.~2%
“The new landlord exacted a month's rent in advance from every tenant.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 31 sentences found in the wild and placed 28 of them on a sense (3 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Exact goes back to Latin exāctus, from the verb exigō, which meant to demand or claim what was owed, and also to weigh something against an official standard. Exigō is ex, out, plus agō, drive: to drive something out of a person. Both halves survived into English — the verb exact still forces a payment or a promise out of someone, while the adjective keeps the inspector's sense, measured against the standard with nothing left over.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂eǵ-
Middle English
exact
Latin
exāctus
English, today
exact
Built from
From Latin exāctus (the verb via Middle English exact), perfect passive participle of exigō (“demand, claim as due; measure by a standard, weigh, test”), from ex (“out”) + agō (“drive”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA