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Extract vs Detract - What's the difference?

extract | detract |

In transitive terms the difference between extract and detract

is that extract is to take by selection; to choose out; to cite or quote, as a passage from a book while detract is to take credit or reputation from; to defame or decry.

As a noun extract

is that which is extracted or drawn out.

extract

Noun

(en noun)
  • That which is extracted or drawn out.
  • A portion of a book or document, incorporated distinctly in another work; a citation; a quotation.
  • A decoction, solution, or infusion made by drawing out from any substance that which gives it its essential and characteristic virtue; essence; as, extract of beef; extract of dandelion; also, any substance so extracted, and characteristic of that from which it is obtained; as, quinine is the most important extract of Peruvian bark.
  • A solid preparation obtained by evaporating a solution of a drug, etc., or the fresh juice of a plant; -- distinguished from an abstract.
  • (obsolete) A peculiar principle (fundamental essence) once erroneously supposed to form the basis of all vegetable extracts; -- called also the extractive principle.
  • Ancestry; descent.
  • A draft or copy of writing; a certified copy of the proceedings in an action and the judgment therein, with an order for execution.
  • Synonyms

    * (that which is extracted) extraction * origin, extraction

    Derived terms

    * yeast extract

    See also

    * tincture

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To draw out or forth; to pull out; to remove forcibly from a fixed position, as by traction or suction, etc.
  • to extract a tooth from its socket, a stump from the earth, or a splinter from the finger
  • * Milton
  • The bee / Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Yesterday’s fuel , passage=The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).}}
  • To withdraw by expression, distillation, or other mechanical or chemical process. Compare abstract (transitive verb).
  • to extract an essential oil from a plant
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=72-3, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= A punch in the gut , passage=Mostly, the microbiome is beneficial. It helps with digestion and enables people to extract a lot more calories from their food than would otherwise be possible. Research over the past few years, however, has implicated it in diseases from atherosclerosis to asthma to autism.}}
  • To take by selection; to choose out; to cite or quote, as a passage from a book.
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • I have extracted out of that pamphlet a few notorious falsehoods.
  • (arithmetic) To determine (a root of a number).
  • Synonyms

    * (to take by selection) (l)

    detract

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To take away; to withdraw or remove.
  • *{{quote-news
  • , year=2012 , date=May 27 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid On The Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992) , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=The Conan O’Brien-penned half-hour has the capacity to rip our collective hearts out the way the cute, funny bad girl next door does to Bart when she reveals that her new boyfriend is Jimbo Jones, but the show keeps shying away from genuine emotion in favor of jokes that, while overwhelmingly funny, detract from the poignancy and the emotional intimacy of the episode.}}
  • To take credit or reputation from; to defame or decry.
  • * Drayton
  • That calumnious critic / Detracting what laboriously we do.

    Synonyms

    * defame, decry * See also

    Derived terms

    * detraction * detractor