Word of the Day Archive
Sunday March 17, 2002
extricate \EK-struh-kayt\ , transitive verb:
To free or release from a difficulty or entanglement; to get free; to disengage.
Sean introduced himself and then extricated his hand from Ronan's persistent grasp in order to show him the photo.
-- Naeem Murr, The Boy
Ultimately they extricated Ned by lifting up the whole table-and-chair structure, thus allowing him to fall out onto the floor.
-- Joan L. Richards, Angles of Reflection: Logic and a Mother's Love
I knelt down, either out of weakness or out of gratitude to a god who had extricated me from yet another predicament.
-- Christa Wolf, Medea: A Modern Retelling
Extricate comes from Latin extricare, "to disentangle, to extricate," from ex-, "out" + tricae, "trifles, impediments, perplexities."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for extricate
