Excerpt | Definition of excerpt by Merriam-Webster

Full Definition of EXCERPT

transitive verb

1

: to select (a passage) for quoting : extract

2

: to take or publish extracts from (as a book)

— ex·cerp·tor or ex·cerpt·er noun

— ex·cerp·tion \ek-ˈsərp-shən, eg-ˈzərp-\ noun

See excerpt defined for English-language learners

See excerpt defined for kids

The fiction that the magazine does publish is too often excerpted from novels or imminently forthcoming collections, making the magazine seem more a flack for publishers than a site of editorial strength and vision. —Vince Passaro, Harper's, August 1999
How quickly does the Net move? Last Friday journalist Michael Colton posted an elaborate Web parody of the forthcoming magazine Talk, which is owned by Miramax and helmed by former New Yorker editor Tina Brown. Within hours, the site's URL had ricocheted about in countless e-mails, and the Drudge Report had excerpted the text. —Newsweek, 26 July 1999
[+]more [-]hide

Latin excerptus, past participle of excerpere, from ex- + carpere to gather, pluck — more at harvest

First Known Use: 15th century

: a passage (as from a book or musical composition) selected, performed, or copied : extract

See excerpt defined for English-language learners

Among the excerpts and Twitter feeds and author interviews … there was the actor Will Smith praising The Alchemist as one of his favorite books. —Gregory Cowles, New York Times Book Review, 18 Oct. 2009
When his [Thomas Jefferson's] wife Martha died in 1782, he wrapped a lock of her hair with a scrap of paper containing an excerpt from the couple's favorite novel, Laurence Sterne's comic masterpiece, Tristram Shandy, and stashed the token in his desk. —Walter Kim, Time, 5 July 2004
The exemplary figure here is Norman Mailer, whose 1959 Advertisements for Myself is the height of writerly chutzpah. The book, comprising excerpts from his journalism and fiction, descriptions of the agonies he went through to produce them and obsessive reviews of his reviewers, is so shameless it's admirable. —Judith Shulevitz, New York Times Book Review, 17 June 2001
… I also keep a pad by the side of my bed for writing down great thoughts at night without having to turn on the light. In the morning, these great thoughts sound like excerpts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. —Bill Cosby, Time Flies, (1987) 1988
[+]more [-]hide