excerpt

²ex·cerpt

noun \ˈek-ˌsərpt, ˈeg-ˌzərpt\

Definition of EXCERPT

: a passage (as from a book or musical composition) selected, performed, or copied : extract

Examples of EXCERPT

1. She read an excerpt from the play.
2. I've read only excerpts of Moby-Dick, never the whole book.
3. Among the excerpts and Twitter feeds and author interviews … there was the actor Will Smith praising The Alchemist as one of his favorite books. —Gregory Cowles, New York Times Book Review, 18 Oct. 2009
4. When his [Thomas Jefferson's] wife Martha died in 1782, he wrapped a lock of her hair with a scrap of paper containing an excerpt from the couple's favorite novel, Laurence Sterne's comic masterpiece, Tristram Shandy, and stashed the token in his desk. —Walter Kim, Time, 5 July 2004
5. The exemplary figure here is Norman Mailer, whose 1959 Advertisements for Myself is the height of writerly chutzpah. The book, comprising excerpts from his journalism and fiction, descriptions of the agonies he went through to produce them and obsessive reviews of his reviewers, is so shameless it's admirable. —Judith Shulevitz, New York Times Book Review, 17 June 2001
6. … I also keep a pad by the side of my bed for writing down great thoughts at night without having to turn on the light. In the morning, these great thoughts sound like excerpts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. —Bill Cosby, Time Flies, (1987) 1988

Origin of EXCERPT

(see ¹excerpt)

First Known Use: 1627

Related to EXCERPT

Synonyms: extract, passage

Related Words: clip, snippet, sound bite; citation, quotation; locus classicus, longueur, purple passage; context; sample, selection

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Other Publishing Terms

annotate, dreadful, emend, expurgate, factoid, jump, lobster shift, redaction, referee