Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

excerpt

UK/ˈɛɡzɜː(p)t/US/ˈɛɡzɝ(p)t/
nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,905 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: excerpts

An excerpt is a short passage taken out of a longer text. Read an excerpt, an excerpt from the novel, print excerpts.

Quoting a short excerpt for review or criticism is generally allowed under copyright law, where reprinting the whole is not. The noun is stressed on the first syllable and the verb on the second. The Latin means to pick out.

Definitions of excerpt

  1. 1nounexcerptA short passage taken from a longer text.B2+

    “The magazine printed an excerpt from her new novel.”

excerpt is a passage.

Also accepted in games: extract

Where it comes from

Latin excerptus comes from excerpere, to pick out — ex, out, plus carpere, to pluck. Carpet and harvest are distant relatives.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *kerp-

  2. Latin

    excerptus

  3. English, today

    excerpt

Built from

  • excerpo · Latin — to pick out
  • ex · Latin — out
  • carpo · Latin — to pick, pluck

From Latin excerptus, past participle of excerpo (“to pick out”), from ex (“out”) + carpo (“to pick, pluck”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Academic English

Practise this word