Word of the Day

: October 12, 2021

extricate

verb EK-struh-kayt

What It Means

Extricate means "to free or remove someone or something from an entanglement or difficulty."

// Firefighters extricated the passengers from the wreckage.

// The wife of the accused hired an attorney to extricate herself from the allegations brought against her husband.

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extricate in Context

"The skylight has been lifted off Toland Hall to create an opening large enough to extricate the panels by crane." — Sam Whiting, The San Francisco Chronicle, 31 Aug. 2021

Did You Know?

Extricate is used for the act of freeing someone or something from a tangled situation. Its spelling and meaning comes from Latin extricatus, which combines the prefix ex- ("out of") with the noun tricae, meaning "trifles or perplexities." The resemblance of tricae to trick is no illusion—it's an ancestor.