excerpt

noun ex·cerpt \ ˈek-ˌsərpt , ˈeg-ˌzərpt \

|Updated on: 20 Jul 2018

Examples: excerpt in a Sentence

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

See excerpt defined for English-language learners

Examples of excerpt in a Sentence

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
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
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
… 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
She read an excerpt from the play.
I've read only excerpts of Moby-Dick, never the whole book.

Recent Examples of excerpt from the Web

The following is an excerpt from To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder, a new nonfiction book by author and journalist Nancy Rommelmann.

— nancy rommelmann, Good Housekeeping, "Amanda Stott-Smith Was a Loving Mother of 3. So Why Did She Try to Murder Her 2 Youngest Kids?," 29 June 2018
The policy says derogatory or insensitive jokes and offensive images may be considered forms of harassment, according to excerpts of the policy reviewed by the Journal.

— douglas macmillan, WSJ, "Google Reins In Workplace Debate," 28 June 2018
One is an excerpt from this book and the other is a great piece about Fox and Disney and Comcast and that battle.

— eric johnson, Recode, "‘The King of Content’ author Keach Hagey talks with Peter Kafka about Sumner Redstone’s crazy life," 28 June 2018
The unusual pursuit was only one of several personal tasks Hupp conducted for Pruitt, according to excerpts of the interview, released Monday.

— jennifer a dlouhy, Bloomberg.com, "Pruitt Tried to Buy Used Mattress From Trump Hotel Last Year," 4 June 2018
Starting the night off was an excerpt from Harlequinade, a piece originally choreographed by Marius Petipa for the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet in 1900.

— lilah ramzi, Vogue, "Alec Baldwin, Katie Holmes, Jeremy Irons, and More Turn Out for the American Ballet Theatre’s Spring Gala," 22 May 2018
The following is an excerpt of Habeas Data, which shows how the explosive growth of surveillance technology has outpaced our understanding of the ethics, mores, and laws of privacy.

— cyrus farivar, Ars Technica, "How a suspected gang member’s traffic stop led to a crucial privacy case," 8 May 2018
Find the full Jordan story here and enjoy the excerpt below.

— si.com staff, SI.com, "Nine Innings: Solving the Yankees' Sonny Gray Problem, AL East Deciding Factors and Our Favorite Statcast Quirks," 2 July 2018
The excerpt appeared at 11:45 p.m., on a website, NakamotoFamilyFoundation.org, purchased three days ago via Amazon’s domain registrar.

— garrett m. graff, WIRED, "Did Satoshi Nakamoto Write This Book Excerpt? A Wired Investigation," 1 July 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'excerpt.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of excerpt

see ²excerpt

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1627

in the meaning defined above

See Words from the same year

excerpt Synonyms

Synonyms

extract, passage;

Related Words

clip, snippet, sound bite;

citation, quotation;

locus classicus;

sample, selection;

Other Literature Terms

apophasis, bathos, bildungsroman, bowdlerize, caesura, coda, doggerel, euphemism, poesy, prosody

excerpt

verb ex·cerpt \ ek-ˈsərpt , eg-ˈzərpt , ˈek-ˌsərpt , ˈeg-ˌzərpt \

excerpted; excerpting; excerpts

transitive verb

1 : to select (a passage) for quoting : extract

2 : to take or publish extracts from (something, such as a book)

—

excerptor

or excerpter noun

—

excerption

play \ek-ˈsərp-shən, eg-ˈzərp-\ noun

See excerpt defined for English-language learners

See excerpt defined for kids

Examples of excerpt in a Sentence

The fiction that the magazine does publish is too often excerpted from novels or imminently forthcoming collections, making the magazine seem more a flack for publishers than a site of editorial strength and vision. —Vince Passaro, Harper's, August 1999
How quickly does the Net move? Last Friday journalist Michael Colton posted an elaborate Web parody of the forthcoming magazine Talk, which is owned by Miramax and helmed by former New Yorker editor Tina Brown. Within hours, the site's URL had ricocheted about in countless e-mails, and the Drudge Report had excerpted the text. —Newsweek, 26 July 1999

Recent Examples of excerpt from the Web

In a wide-ranging story for Vulture that is excerpted from a forthcoming monograph, author Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah profiles figurative painter Henry Taylor, who had five new paintings exhibited at last year’s Whitney Biennial.

— danielle jackson, Longreads, "‘Wild With Love’: Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah on the Portraits of Henry Taylor," 12 July 2018
Their determination is captured in a 17-minute documentary, Awakening: After Parkland, premiering Monday on Topic.com and excerpted exclusively above.

— jeff truesdell, PEOPLE.com, "Parkland Shooting Survivors Find Inspiration, Purpose in Staging Timely Musical Born of Teenage Pain," 29 June 2018
Only two Bournonville excerpts shone with a singularity that revealed the personable warmth and gestural ease long associated with the company’s dancers.

— robert greskovic, WSJ, "A Mixed Bill With Varied Results," 22 June 2018
Toward the end, the musicians enacted a rebellion against routine, throwing down their music stands and stalking offstage while a chaotic electronic collage of Beethoven excerpts swelled on the sound system.

— alex ross, The New Yorker, "The Sonic Fury of the Ojai Music Festival," 24 June 2018
My letter of resignation was printed in full in the student newspaper and excerpted on this page.

— paul s. levy, WSJ, "University Boardrooms Need Reform," 10 June 2018
Mills freights with devastating information four photographs and three short sound pieces, two excerpted from the podcast.

— cate mcquaid, BostonGlobe.com, "When fact and imagination meet," 6 June 2018
Joanna revealed the touching story of her engagement to husband Chip in their new book The Magnolia Story, which was excerpted on Cosmopolitan.com.

— jessica leigh mattern, Country Living, "This is Why Joanna Gaines Will Never Upgrade Her Engagement Ring," 4 Jan. 2018
Some of the listed or excerpted texts aren’t attached to a particular author.

— jeff barker, baltimoresun.com, "Inspector General report says FBI agent called Martin O'Malley a 'douche'," 15 June 2018