Extraneous

//ɛkˈstɹeɪ.ni.əs// adj

adj ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Not belonging to, or dependent upon, a thing; without or beyond a thing; foreign. not-comparable

    "to separate gold from extraneous matter"

  2. 2
    Not essential or intrinsic. not-comparable

    "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."

Adjective
  1. 1
    coming from the outside wordnet
  2. 2
    not essential wordnet
  3. 3
    not pertinent to the matter under consideration wordnet
  4. 4
    not belonging to that in which it is contained; introduced from an outside source wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
additionalextrinsicimpertinentsuperfluousaccidentaladded

Example

More examples

"Tom has a hard time blocking out extraneous information."

Etymology

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

Related phrases

extraneous variable

More for "extraneous"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.