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.
Examples
“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.
Aquinas College Library 