excerpt
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
-
to take or select (a passage) from a book, film, or the like; extract.
-
to take or select passages from (a book, film, or the like); abridge by choosing representative sections.
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
- excerpter noun
- excerptible adjective
- excerption noun
- excerptor noun
- unexcerpted adjective
Etymology
Origin of excerpt
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English, from Latin excerptus “picked out,” past participle of excerpere “to pick out, pluck out,” from ex- ex- 1 + -cerpere, combining form of carpere “to pluck”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Once, to be sure that I got a story right, I shared an excerpt of my book manuscript with Greenspan.
From Barron's
Mr. Kline’s timing is sublime, whether he’s immersed in Richard’s narcissism or enchanting a crowd of locals with an excerpt from, again, “Hamlet.”
Though there was little new news, Elisha’s influential family and friends supplied the newspapers with excerpts from his letters to keep his name in the public eye.
From Literature
In excerpted quotes from Schwank’s prepared testimony shared with The Times, he calls the training program “deficient, defective and broken.”
From Los Angeles Times
But his brother Craig’s memorializing of him, “Armed Only With a Camera,” is oddly uninvolving, more an excerpted flipbook of Brent’s far-flung assignments than a meaningful portrait of excelling at a dangerous job.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
