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
This belief was also adaptable to extant anxieties.
—TIME, 7 May 2024
A couple’s tiny cabin in the Catskills, one of the few extant examples of a popular 1970s design, had no heat or toilet.
—Debra Kamin, New York Times, 28 Apr. 2024
See all Example Sentences for extant 
TIME, 7 May 2024
A couple’s tiny cabin in the Catskills, one of the few extant examples of a popular 1970s design, had no heat or toilet.
—Debra Kamin, New York Times, 28 Apr. 2024
See all Example Sentences for extant
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'extant.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near extant
Cite this Entry
“Extant.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/extant. Accessed 29 May. 2024.
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