extraction

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English extraccioun,^[2][3] borrowed from Middle French extraction,^[4][5][6] which comes from Late Latin extractiō (the OED calls it medieval Latin), a noun of action formed on extractus, the past participle of extrahō (“to draw out”).^[4][2][7] That verb is made of ex- (“out”) and trahō (“to draw”).^[8][7] Old French also had a semi-popular form estraction,^[4] recorded in the 12th century in the sense "extraction, origin".^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Descent, lineage: 1477, in Caxton's translation of Le Fèvre's History of Jason.^[4] Etymonline dates the sense "process of drawing out" to the early 15th century and the lineage sense to the late 15th,^[8] and Merriam-Webster dates the word to the 15th century;^[2] Dictionary.com gives 1375–1425.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The physical sense, pulling something out by mechanical means, is found from 1530,^[4] and the act of drawing a tooth is the commonest single use today.^[6][9] Arithmetic took up the word for finding the root of a number (1557, in Robert Recorde),^[4] and chemistry for obtaining a substance from a compound by heat or pressure (1605); for about a century extraction could also mean the substance obtained, an extract, or a passage copied out of a book.^[4][6] Johnson (1755) defined it chiefly in this chemical sense, as drawing out the principal substance of a compound.^[10] A brief sense "inference, deduction" (1622) died out.^[4][6] The lineage sense survives in phrases giving a person's origin by nationality,^[9][2] and in mining and milling the word also names the proportion of ore, metal or flour recovered.^[2]

Timeline

• early 15th century – drawing something out, in Etymonline's dating.^[8]
• 1477 – descent, lineage.^[4]
• 1530 – pulling or taking out by mechanical means.^[4]
• 1557 – (mathematics) extracting a root.^[4]
• 1594 – something extracted (until 1670).^[4]
• 1605 – obtaining a substance by a chemical process.^[4]
• 1622 – an inference (obsolete).^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The act or process of drawing or taking something out: the extraction of oil from olives.
2. The pulling out of a tooth or teeth.
3. Origin by birth; descent, ancestry: a family of Polish extraction.
4. (mining, milling) The proportion of metal, mineral or flour obtained from the raw material.
5. (obsolete) Something extracted; an extract.

Word family

• nonextraction
• overextraction
• preextraction

Related words

• extract
• tract
• attraction
• distraction

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.