from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
transitive verb To release from an entanglement or difficulty; disengage.
from The Century Dictionary.
To disentangle; disengage; free: as, to extricate one from a perilous or embarrassing situation; to extricate one's self from debt.
To set loose or free; evolve; excrete.
SynonymsDisentangle, etc. (see disengage); relieve, deliver, set free.
In entomology, extruded: applied to the ovipositor when the valves and vagina are entirely without the body, whether in use or not, as in many Ichneumonidæ.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
transitive verb To free, as from difficulties or perplexities; to disentangle; to disembarrass
transitive verb To cause to be emitted or evolved.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
verb transitive To free, disengage, loosen, or untangle.
verb rare To free from intricacies or perplexity
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
verb release from entanglement of difficulty
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
However, we had the pleasure of seeing everything safe at camp in the evening, except three or four of our poorest horses, which being unable to extricate from the snow, we were obliged to abandon to their fate.
Hillary Clinton said Sunday that 'President Bush has made a mess of Iraq and it is his responsibility to' extricate 'the United States from the situation before he leaves office,' reports the AP.
Princeiso said a royal peace and development programme was planned to reach out to traditional chiefs, "extricate" them from politics, and allow people displaced by violence to return to their communities.
William John Davis today told the District Court he had turned his life around, kicked his drug habit and begun to "extricate" himself from the outlaw club.
"My mom has worked in the same factory for more than 30 years. Along with about a hundred others, some immigrants from Southeast Asia, she makes small motors that can be used in dialysis machines, rotating advertising signs, or those amusement park games where you maneuver a metal claw hoping to extricate a small fuzzy animal."
- Robert Eshelman, 'Meeting Myself in Bucks County', 28 Oct 2008.
bilby commented on the word extricate
"My mom has worked in the same factory for more than 30 years. Along with about a hundred others, some immigrants from Southeast Asia, she makes small motors that can be used in dialysis machines, rotating advertising signs, or those amusement park games where you maneuver a metal claw hoping to extricate a small fuzzy animal."
- Robert Eshelman, 'Meeting Myself in Bucks County', 28 Oct 2008.
October 29, 2008