Loading..

Loading...

American Dictionary of the English Language

Dictionary Search

Extraction


EXTRAC'TION, noun [Latin extractio.] The act of drawing out; as the extraction of a tooth; the extraction of a bone or an arrow from the body; the extraction of a fetus or child in midwifery.

1. Descent; lineage; birth; derivation of persons from a stock or family. Hence, the stock or family from which one has descended. We say, a man is of a noble extraction

2. In pharmacy, the operation of drawing essences, tinctures, etc. from a substance.

3. In arithmetic and algebra, the extraction of roots is the operation of finding the root of a given number of quantity; also, the method or rule by which the operation is performed.