extricate

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin extricatus, past participle of extricō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛks.tɹɪ.keɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Verb

extricate (third-person singular simple present extricates, present participle extricating, simple past and past participle extricated)

1. (transitive) To free, disengage, loosen, or untangle.

   I finally managed to extricate myself from the tight jacket.

   The firefighters had to use the jaws of life to extricate Monica from the car wreck.

2. (rare) To free from intricacies or perplexity
   • 1662: Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogue Two)

     Your argumentation ... is invelloped with certain intricacies, that are not easie to be extricated.

Related terms

• extrication

Translations

to free, disengage, loosen or untangle

• Bulgarian: измъквам (bg) (izmǎkvam), освобождавам (bg) (osvoboždavam)
• Czech: vymanit
• Catalan: desempallegar (ca), deslliurar (ca)
• Dutch: bevrijden (nl), ontwarren (nl), verlossen (nl)
• German: befreien (de)
• Icelandic: losa, leysa

• Latin: extrīcō
• Russian: освобожда́ть (ru) (osvoboždátʹ)
• Scottish Gaelic: fuasgail, saor
• Spanish: librar (es), sacar (es)

References

• “extricate”, in John A. Simpson and Edward S. C. Weiner, editors, The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, →ISBN.

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Latin

Verb

extrīcāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of extrīcō