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extimate

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extimate¹

  • /ˈɛkstɪmət/ US, UK

Where it comes from

From Latin extimus (“furthest; outermost”) + -ate (adjective-forming suffix), modelled after ultimate. Extimus is the superlative form of exter (“on the outside, external, outer, outward”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁eǵʰs (“out”). Compare intimate.

adjective

  1. not comparable, obsolete, rare Most distant or faraway; outermost, uttermost. [I]f we could ſee the Soule her ſelf, we could know no more by her then ſhe thus exhibits to our eye: which perſonal figuration in the extimate parts thereof, that repreſent the Body, Face and Veſtments, may be attempered to ſo fine an opacity, that it may reflect the light in more perfect colours t

    Similar: farthest, furthest, distant, far, far-flung, far-off, faraway, outlandish, outlying, out of the way, remote · Opposite: closest, nearest, around the corner, citerior, close, close by, immediate, near, nearby, nigh, present, propinquitous

extimate²

  • /ˈɛkstɪmət/ US, UK

Where it comes from

From extimacy + -ate (adjective-forming suffix). Extimacy is a calque of French extimité (coined by the French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) in 1959–1960), probably from a blend of French externe (“external”) + intimité (“closeness, intimacy”). The English word can be analysed as a blend of external + intimate.

adjective

  1. In the works of Jacques Lacan: simultaneously external and intimate. Since [Edgar Allan] Poe is viewed by the critical tradition as simultaneously inevitable and dubious, we should strive to see him as neither in nor out of the central canon, but rather, to adopt one of [Jacques] Lacan's neologisms, as extimate with relation to it, "simultaneously the intimate kernel

Translations

Every language

adj simultaneously external and intimate

Françaisextimité

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MLA

"extimate." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/extimate. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

extimate. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/extimate

Chicago

"extimate." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/extimate.

BibTeX
@misc{extimate_2026,
  title = {extimate},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/extimate},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}