What does excerpting mean?
Excerpting is the practice of selecting a short portion of a larger work — a few sentences from a novel, a paragraph from a report, a bar of a song — and presenting it on its own. It is the present participle and gerund of the verb 'to excerpt', itself drawn from Latin excerpere, meaning to pick or pluck out. Excerpting is central to how ideas circulate: reviewers quote striking lines, journalists lift key statements, anthologists assemble extracts, and search engines display snippets. The word carries a mostly neutral, professional tone common in publishing, law, and academia, though it can acquire a critical edge when excerpting strips context — a passage quoted out of context may mislead even if every word is accurate. Related to quoting but distinct, excerpting implies deliberate selection of a representative or useful fragment rather than full reproduction. Its etymology, rooted in the image of plucking ripe ears of grain, neatly captures its essence: gathering the best parts while leaving the field intact.
Present participle of 'excerpt': to take or quote a passage out of a book, article, speech, or other work.
"The magazine is excerpting three chapters of the memoir ahead of publication."
Takes a direct object naming either the source ('excerpting the report') or the material ('excerpting passages'); passive constructions usually refer to the material being quoted.
The action or practice of extracting passages from a larger work.
"Careless excerpting can distort an author's intended meaning."
Excerpting literally means 'plucking out' — it comes from the Latin carpere, the same verb that gave us the idea behind 'harvest', so when you excerpt a text you are harvesting its best lines.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of excerpting
Excerpting derives from the verb 'excerpt', which English borrowed in the early 17th century from Latin excerpere, formed from ex- ('out') plus carpere ('to pluck, gather, pick'). The same Latin verb carpere lies behind 'carpet' (originally a 'plucked' fabric) and is cognate with the Germanic root that produced 'harvest'. The noun 'excerpt' (an extracted passage) and the verb developed side by side, and 'excerpting' simply follows the standard English pattern for participles and gerunds.
Related word forms
How excerpting is actually used
Register is neutral to formal; 'excerpting' appears most often in publishing, journalism, legal, and academic contexts. In everyday conversation speakers are more likely to say 'quoting' or 'pulling a quote' than 'excerpting'. The gerund functions as an uncountable noun ('excessive excerpting'), while the participle takes normal verbal objects and complements.
Easily confused with excerpting
'Excepting' means excluding or leaving out ('everyone was there excepting John'), whereas 'excerpting' means quoting or extracting a passage from a larger text.