extraneous

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin extrāneus (“external, strange”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} with the Latin ending replaced by the English suffix -ous,^{[2][8][9][5][10]} from extrā (“outside”).^{[2][3][4][5][11]} Dictionary.com analyses the Latin adjective as extra- with -ānus and -eus.^[12] The same Latin adjective reached English through Old French estrange as strange, so that the two English words are doublets.^[2][3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of external origin; introduced or added from outside: 1638, in A. Read's treatise on surgery.^[2][13][7] Etymonline dates the word to the 1630s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

As a noun the Latin word meant "a stranger", and its literal sense was "that is from without".^[3] The first English sense kept that physical idea of something foreign to the object that contains it,^[2] and it was soon extended to what lies outside the matter in hand, recorded from 1662,^[2] and to people who do not belong to a community, country or family, from 1656.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as not belonging to a thing, foreign, of a different substance, and not intrinsic, quoting Locke.^[14] Collins now lists "not essential" and "irrelevant" first.^[6]

Timeline

• 1638 – of external origin; added from outside.^[2][13][7]
• 1656 – of a person, not belonging to a community, country or family.^[2]
• 1662 – external to the thing under consideration, not forming part of it.^[2]
• c. 1750 – brought from abroad, exotic.^[2]
• 1786 – of an action, proceeding from outside.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not essential or not relevant to the matter in hand: Delete the extraneous paragraphs from your report.^[6][7]
2. Coming from outside; external in origin: extraneous noise on the recording.^[6][7][2]
3. Not belonging to the thing to which it has been added, or in which it is contained; foreign.^[6][2]
4. Of a person: not belonging to a particular community, country or family.^[2]

Word family

• extraneously
• extraneousness
• nonextraneous
• unextraneous

Related words

• strange
• extra
• extra-

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.