1
a
: currently or actually existing
the most charming writer extant—
G. W. Johnson
G. W. Johnson
b
: still existing : not destroyed or lost
extant manuscripts
2
archaic
: standing out or above
Examples of extant in a Sentence
There is, he reports, no extant copy of the Super Bowl I television broadcast; nobody bothered to keep the tapes.
—Joe Queenan, New York Times Book Review, 1 Feb. 2009
First produced in the spring of 472 BC, Persians is noteworthy in the corpus of the thirty-two extant Greek tragedies in that it is the only classical Greek drama that dramatizes an actual historical event.
—Daniel Mendelsohn, New York Review, 21 Sept. 2006
[George] Lucas' brain teemed with plots and characters, exotic creatures, worlds to be spun out of the words and sketches in his notebooks. Also, by numbering the extant episodes IV, V and VI, he was implicitly promising a prequel trilogy …
—Richard Corliss, Time, 9 May 2005
There are few extant records from that period.
one of the oldest buildings still extant
Joe Queenan, New York Times Book Review, 1 Feb. 2009
First produced in the spring of 472 BC, Persians is noteworthy in the corpus of the thirty-two extant Greek tragedies in that it is the only classical Greek drama that dramatizes an actual historical event.
—Daniel Mendelsohn, New York Review, 21 Sept. 2006
[George] Lucas' brain teemed with plots and characters, exotic creatures, worlds to be spun out of the words and sketches in his notebooks. Also, by numbering the extant episodes IV, V and VI, he was implicitly promising a prequel trilogy …
—Richard Corliss, Time, 9 May 2005
There are few extant records from that period.
one of the oldest buildings still extant
Recent Examples on the Web
Moreover, studies of its bone vascularization hint at a higher growth rate and potentially a faster metabolism compared to many extant snakes.
—Scott Travers, Forbes, 13 Mar. 2025
Almost a year ago, to the day, the team announced its progress in understanding the mammoth's genes, thanks to one of its closest extant relatives, the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus).
—New Atlas, 4 Mar. 2025
At a time when viewers can pick and choose content at a whim, sports remains one of the few formats extant that can draw the large simultaneous audiences that advertisers crave.
—Brian Steinberg, Variety, 20 Feb. 2025
Remaining wild populations are few and far between, often constrained to remote patches of high-elevation forest; other species only remain extant because of captive rearing programs managed by the Hawaii Snail Extinction Prevention Program.
—Maddie Bender, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for extant
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Scott Travers, Forbes, 13 Mar. 2025
Almost a year ago, to the day, the team announced its progress in understanding the mammoth's genes, thanks to one of its closest extant relatives, the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus).
—New Atlas, 4 Mar. 2025
At a time when viewers can pick and choose content at a whim, sports remains one of the few formats extant that can draw the large simultaneous audiences that advertisers crave.
—Brian Steinberg, Variety, 20 Feb. 2025
Remaining wild populations are few and far between, often constrained to remote patches of high-elevation forest; other species only remain extant because of captive rearing programs managed by the Hawaii Snail Extinction Prevention Program.
—Maddie Bender, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for extant
Cite this Entry
“Extant.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/extant. Accessed 18 Mar. 2025.
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