protract

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin prōtractus (“drawn out, prolonged”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the past participle of prōtrahō (“to draw forward, extend, prolong, defer”),^{[7][8][9][10]} formed from prō- (“forth”) and trahō (“to draw, drag”).^[7][8][11] The revised OED treats it as a direct borrowing,^[7] while Barnhart and Etymonline see it as in part a back-formation from the earlier noun protraction, which Barnhart records from about 1458.^[6][5] In post-classical Latin the verb also meant to draw or portray, from the 12th century in British sources,^[7] and through French the same verb gave portray.^[5][10] The noun protract is partly the Latin verbal noun meaning postponement or delay and partly from the English verb.^[7][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To extend or prolong time so as to cause delay, to waste time: 1526, in Wolsey, as printed in Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials.^[7][3] Etymonline dates the verb to the 1530s and Barnhart to before 1548.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

The earliest uses are about delay: wasting time (from 1526), putting off an action (1528–1808) and, without an object, holding back from acting (1540–1677).^[7] From 1548 it also meant making an action last longer, which is now the main sense.^[7][3] The sense of drawing to scale (1559) goes with the post-classical Latin meaning of the verb;^[7][9] the noun protractor meant a person who prolongs something in 1611 and the instrument for measuring angles by 1658.^[6] Johnson (1755) defines the verb as to draw out, delay, lengthen, "spin to length", and quotes Spenser for the noun, "tedious continuance".^[12] Etymonline notes that the verb survived chiefly in the past participle protracted, as in protracted meeting, a long series of revival meetings, attested by 1832.^[5]

Timeline

• 1526 – to extend or waste time so as to cause delay.^[7][3]
• 1528 – to put off or postpone an action, until 1808.^[7]
• 1536 – noun: delay, only in protract of time, until 1646.^[7]
• 1540 – without an object, to delay acting, until 1677.^[7]
• 1548 – to prolong an action or event, in Hall's Vnion.^[7]
• 1559 – to draw to scale, in Cuningham's Cosmographical Glasse.^[7]
• 1585 – noun: a drawing.^[7][10]
• before 1658 – to extend in space, in Durham.^[7]
• 1908 – noun: a protracted meeting, in the US.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To prolong or draw out in time.^[3][13][7]
2. To extend in space.^[3][7]
3. To draw to a scale or plot, especially with a protractor.^[3][13][7]
4. Of a muscle, to thrust a part of the body forward or outward.^[13][3]
5. (archaic) To put off to a later time; to delay or defer.^[3][7]

Noun

1. (US, rare) A revival meeting that goes on for several days.^[7][10][5]
2. (obsolete, 1536–1646) Prolonging of time; delay.^[7][10][12]
3. (obsolete, 1585) A drawing.^[7][10]

Word family

• protractedly
• protractedness
• protractive
• protractible
• protractile
• protraction
• protractor
• protracted

Related words

• tract
• portray
• portrait
• retract
• abstract
• attract
• trace

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins