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).

Verb

(en verb)

To get hold of; to gain possession of, to procure; to acquire, in any way.

* 1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , Luke XVIII:

And a certayne ruler axed him: sayinge: Goode Master: what ought I to do, to obtaine eternall lyfe?

* 1814 , (Jane Austen), (Mansfield Park) :

Julia was quite as eager for novelty and pleasure as Maria, though she might not have struggled through so much to obtain them, and could better bear a subordinate situation.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=(Oliver Burkeman)

, volume=189, issue=2, page=48, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= The tao of tech , passage=But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention. Partly, this is a result of how online advertising has traditionally worked: advertisers pay for clicks, and a click is a click, however it's obtained .}}

(obsolete) To secure (that) a specific objective or state of affairs be reached.

* 1722 , (Daniel Defoe), (Colonel Jack) :

he was condemned to die for the felony, and being so well known for an old offender, had certainly died, but the merchant, upon his earnest application, had obtained that he should be transported, on condition that he restored all the rest of his bills, which he had done accordingly.

(obsolete) To prevail, be victorious; to succeed.

* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , III.2:

“O daughter deare!” (said she) “despeire no whit; / For never sore but might a salve obtain [...].”

* 1701 , (Jonathan Swift), Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome :

This, though it failed at present, yet afterward obtained , and was a mighty step to the ruin of the commonwealth.

(obsolete) To hold; to keep, possess or occupy.

* 1671 , (John Milton), (Paradise Regained) , Book I:

His mother then is mortal, but his Sire / He who obtains the monarchy of Heav'n, / And what will he not do to advance his Son?

To exist or be the case; to hold true, be in force.

* 1908 , (Jack London), (The Iron Heel) , ,

Even though the Pervaise confession had never come to light, no reasonable doubt could obtain ; for the act in question was on a par with countless other acts committed by the oligarchs, and, before them, by the capitalists.

* 1992 , (Neal Stephenson), (Snow Crash) , Bantam Spectra, p. 460,

But the hostage situation no longer obtains , and so Uncle Enzo feels it important to stop Rife now,