extraneous

English

WOTD – 22 November 2007

Etymology

From Latin extrāneus (“from without, strange”). Doublet of strange. Cognate with estrange (verb), Spanish extraño.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ɛkˈstɹeɪ.ni.əs/, /ɪkˈstɹeɪ.ni.əs/

  • Audio (California):

    (file)

• (Australia, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ekˈstɹæɪ.ni.əs/

  • Audio (Queensland):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪniəs

Adjective

extraneous (not comparable)

1. Not belonging to, or dependent upon, a thing; without or beyond a thing; foreign.

   Synonyms: additional, alien, foreign, intrusive; see also Thesaurus:foreign

   to separate gold from extraneous matter

   Extraneous substances were found on my cup of water.

2. Not essential or intrinsic.

   Synonyms: superfluous, extra; see also Thesaurus:extrinsic

   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC:

     Edward had seen beauty often, and seen it with every possible aid; but never had he seen beauty so perfect, yet so utterly devoid of extraneous assistance.

   • 1964 May, “News and Comment: Minister hamstrings BR workshops”, in Modern Railways, page 291:

     If the Government believes that part of the railways' salvation is to be found in ridding them of extraneous concerns, it should have had the courage either to close the railway works down as quickly as possible, or to hive them off as an entirely separate concern, [...].

   • 2026 May, Julie Belcove, “Farm Fresh”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 92:

     Where workers poured the additional 11-foot-wide strip of foundation, for example, an extraneous column remains, and differences in the finish of the floor can be seen.

   • 2026 July 8, Rose Horowitch, “The End of Reading Is Here”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic‎^[1], Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     Reading has come to seem extraneous even to some of the best-educated members of society.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

Antonyms

• intraneous

Derived terms

• extraneously
• extraneousness
• extraneous variable
• nonextraneous
• unextraneous

Translations

not belonging to, or dependent upon, a thing — see also adventitious,‎ exogenous,‎ external,‎ irrelevant

• Arabic: خَارِجِيّ (ar) (ḵārijiyy)
• Bulgarian: въ́ншен (bg) (vắnšen), чужд (bg) (čužd)
• Dutch: bijkomende (nl), vreemde (nl), extra (nl)
• Finnish: asiaankuulumaton (fi)
• French: étranger (fr)
• German: fremd (de), nicht zugehörig
• Hungarian: idegen (hu)
• Ido: stranjera (io)
• Irish: coimhthíoch
• Latin: extrāneus
• Portuguese: estranho (pt)
• Russian: посторо́нний (ru) (postorónnij), вне́шний (ru) (vnéšnij), чу́ждый (ru) (čúždyj)
• Serbo-Croatian: stran (sh), nepripadajući
• Spanish: ajeno (es), foráneo (es), foraño (es), forano (es), no venir al caso (verb), no venir al cuento (verb)
• Swedish: främmande (sv), ovidkommande (sv), yttre (sv)
• Ukrainian: сторо́нній (uk) (storónnij)

not essential or intrinsic — see also extrinsic

• German: überflüssig (de), unnötig (de), nicht wesentlich