extort

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin extortus (“wrenched out, wrested away”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the past participle of extorqueō (“to wrench out, obtain by force”),^[2][3][5][7] formed from ex- (“out”) and torqueō (“to twist”),^[8][2][7][4] which the American Heritage Dictionary traces to Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to twist”).^[7] The OED and the Shorter Oxford start from the participial stem extort-.^[8][9] According to Barnhart, the verb developed partly from the earlier adjective extort (“acquired wrongfully or by force”), and probably in some instances is a back-formation from extortion,^[3] which Weekley also notes as much older.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To obtain money or payments from a reluctant person by force or abuse of authority: 1529, in the articles against Wolsey.^[8][3] Etymonline dates the verb to the 1520s, and Collins and the Shorter Oxford to the early 16th century.^[2][6][9] Merriam-Webster's 15th-century date and Dictionary.com's 1375–1425 reflect the older adjective.^[5][11]

Semantic evolution

The adjective, meaning wrongfully obtained, appears before 1420 in Lydgate's Troy Book and is last recorded in 1596,^[3][12][8] and a noun for extortion or torture lasted only from 1541 to 1598.^[8] The verb soon widened from money to things that are not material, such as promises or admissions, about 1545 in Bale.^[8] Between 1561 and 1616 it could also take the victim as its object, to practise extortion on a person.^[8] In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night it means to wring a conclusion out of something,^[8] and only in 1785, in Cowper, is it recorded of wresting away a material object, the literal sense of the Latin word.^[8] Cockeram's dictionary of 1623 has a form extorque, to wrest from someone perforce.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave two senses, to draw by force and to gain by violence or oppression.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1420 – adjective, wrongfully obtained (obsolete by 1596).^[3][12]
• 1529 – verb, to obtain money by force or abuse of authority.^[8][3]
• 1541 – noun, extortion, torture (until 1598).^[8]
• c. 1545 – verb, with a promise, admission or the like as its object.^[8]
• 1561 – to practise extortion on a person (obsolete by 1616).^[8]
• before 1616 – to wring a sense or conclusion from something.^[8]
• 1785 – literally, to wrest a material object from someone.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To obtain money or favours from someone by force, intimidation or the abuse of authority: The gang extorted cash from local shopkeepers.^[6][5][8]
2. To get something from someone by persistent demands or argument: The students extorted a promise of an extra holiday.^[6][5][8]
3. To overcharge for something, especially interest on a loan.^[6]
4. To force a sense or conclusion out of a text or premises.^[8]

Word family

• extorter
• extortive
• unextorted
• extortion
• extortionate
• extortionist

Related words

• torque
• torture
• contort
• distort
• retort
• torment

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.