1
a
: currently or actually existing
the most charming writer extant—
G. W. Johnson
G. W. Johnson
b
: still existing : not destroyed or lost
extant manuscripts
2
archaic
: standing out or above
Examples of extant in a Sentence
There is, he reports, no extant copy of the Super Bowl I television broadcast; nobody bothered to keep the tapes.
—Joe Queenan, New York Times Book Review, 1 Feb. 2009
First produced in the spring of 472 BC, Persians is noteworthy in the corpus of the thirty-two extant Greek tragedies in that it is the only classical Greek drama that dramatizes an actual historical event.
—Daniel Mendelsohn, New York Review, 21 Sept. 2006
[George] Lucas' brain teemed with plots and characters, exotic creatures, worlds to be spun out of the words and sketches in his notebooks. Also, by numbering the extant episodes IV, V and VI, he was implicitly promising a prequel trilogy …
—Richard Corliss, Time, 9 May 2005
There are few extant records from that period.
one of the oldest buildings still extant
Joe Queenan, New York Times Book Review, 1 Feb. 2009
First produced in the spring of 472 BC, Persians is noteworthy in the corpus of the thirty-two extant Greek tragedies in that it is the only classical Greek drama that dramatizes an actual historical event.
—Daniel Mendelsohn, New York Review, 21 Sept. 2006
[George] Lucas' brain teemed with plots and characters, exotic creatures, worlds to be spun out of the words and sketches in his notebooks. Also, by numbering the extant episodes IV, V and VI, he was implicitly promising a prequel trilogy …
—Richard Corliss, Time, 9 May 2005
There are few extant records from that period.
one of the oldest buildings still extant
Recent Examples on the Web
Second, properly prepared strands of DNA can reliably last thousands of years: the oldest extant DNA sample is two million years old and is still readable.
—Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker, 20 Mar. 2025
While xAI attributed the censorship to an internal error, with a former OpenAI employee bearing the blame, the incident points to the several extant question marks around AI transparency and ethical oversight.
—Anisha Sircar, Forbes, 19 Mar. 2025
Moreover, studies of its bone vascularization hint at a higher growth rate and potentially a faster metabolism compared to many extant snakes.
—Scott Travers, Forbes, 13 Mar. 2025
Almost a year ago, to the day, the team announced its progress in understanding the mammoth's genes, thanks to one of its closest extant relatives, the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus).
—New Atlas, 4 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for extant
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Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker, 20 Mar. 2025
While xAI attributed the censorship to an internal error, with a former OpenAI employee bearing the blame, the incident points to the several extant question marks around AI transparency and ethical oversight.
—Anisha Sircar, Forbes, 19 Mar. 2025
Moreover, studies of its bone vascularization hint at a higher growth rate and potentially a faster metabolism compared to many extant snakes.
—Scott Travers, Forbes, 13 Mar. 2025
Almost a year ago, to the day, the team announced its progress in understanding the mammoth's genes, thanks to one of its closest extant relatives, the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus).
—New Atlas, 4 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for extant
Cite this Entry
“Extant.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/extant. Accessed 3 Apr. 2025.
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