Other forms: extras
An extra is one of the people in the background of a film — walking past the window, sitting at the next table, filling a crowd — with no lines to say. A thousand extras in cloaks for one battle scene, paid by the day.
Away from film, extra means more than the usual amount: an extra blanket, extra time, an extra day off. Put it in front of an adjective and it means especially — be extra careful, extra large, extra strong. The extras are the things you pay for on top of the basic price: breakfast is extra, the extras on a new car. Note the difference from spare: an extra chair is one more chair, a spare chair is the one nobody is sitting on. In young people's slang, being extra means doing far too much and making a drama of it.
1nounextraA person hired to appear in the background of a film or television scene, without speaking.~6%
“She worked as an extra on a period drama for three weeks.”
2adjectiveusualMore than what is usual or expected; additional.~90%
“Take an extra jumper — it gets cold after dark.”
3adverbunusuallyTo an unusually high degree.~2%
“Be extra careful on the top step.”
4nouncostsSomething that costs more than the basic price.~2%
“Insurance and breakfast are extras.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 15 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Extra is what was left when someone chopped the tail off extraordinary. The long word shrank to its first two syllables, and what began as outside the ordinary settled into meaning simply more than the usual amount.
Abbreviation of extraordinary.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA