Meaning & use
excerpt
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A short piece chosen from a longer text, recording, film or speech and presented by itself.
Grammar: Often followed by from: an excerpt from the novel.
Patterns
- an excerpt from something
- an excerpt of something
The magazine printed an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir.
We listened to a short excerpt of the speech in class.
The teacher handed out an excerpt from the play for us to read aloud.
verbtransitiveformal
To take a short section out of a longer work so that it can be quoted or reproduced separately.
Grammar: Takes an object, often with from: excerpt a chapter from the book.
Patterns
- excerpt something from something
The newspaper will excerpt the first chapter of the biography on Sunday.
Her essay was excerpted in an anthology of nature writing.
The editor excerpted a few paragraphs from the long report.
Word forms
| plural | excerpts |
|---|---|
| third person singular | excerpts |
| past tense | excerpted |
| past participle | excerpted |
| -ing form | excerpting |
Common combinations
- excerpt from a book
- I read an excerpt from a book about deep-sea exploration.
- brief excerpt
- The website offers a brief excerpt of each song.
- read an excerpt
- She read an excerpt aloud to the group.
- publish an excerpt
- The journal will publish an excerpt next month.
- short excerpt
- A short excerpt is enough to judge the author's style.
Synonyms and how they differ
- extract
- Extract is nearly interchangeable with excerpt for texts, but it also applies to substances taken out of something, such as vanilla extract.
- passage
- Passage means any stretch of text or music within a work, and it does not necessarily imply that the piece is being displayed separately.
- snippet
- A snippet is smaller and more casual than an excerpt, often just a line or two.
- clip
- Clip is usually used for a short piece of film or audio, while excerpt works for writing as well.
Opposites
Word family
- excerption noun
- the act of taking an excerpt, or the excerpt itself (rare)
- excerpted adjective
- taken as a short piece from a longer work
- extract noun
- a closely related word for a piece taken from something
Commonly confused: excerpt or except?
excerpt vs except
Except means 'not including', while excerpt is a passage taken from a longer work; the extra r and p make the difference in spelling and pronunciation.
Practice
The publisher released a ___ from the first chapter to attract readers.
Choose one answer.
An excerpt is a short passage from a longer work. Exception and expert are real words with other meanings, and 'exerpt' is a misspelling.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “excerpt”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.