extreme
Americanadjective
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of a character or kind farthest removed from the ordinary or average.
extreme measures.
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utmost or exceedingly great in degree.
extreme joy.
- Synonyms:
- superlative
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farthest from the center or middle; outermost; endmost.
the extreme limits of a town.
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farthest, utmost, or very far in any direction.
an object at the extreme point of vision.
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exceeding the bounds of moderation.
extreme fashions.
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going to the utmost or very great lengths in action, habit, opinion, etc..
an extreme conservative.
- Synonyms:
- unreasonable, uncompromising, fanatical, excessive, immoderate, extravagant
- Antonyms:
- moderate
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last or final.
extreme hopes.
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Chiefly Sports. very dangerous or difficult.
extreme skiing.
noun
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extremes
plural
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the utmost or highest degree, or a very high degree.
cautious to an extreme.
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one of two things as remote or different from each other as possible.
the extremes of joy and grief.
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the furthest or utmost length; an excessive length, beyond the ordinary or average.
extremes in dress.
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an extreme act, measure, condition, etc..
the extreme of poverty.
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Mathematics.
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the first or the last term, as of a proportion or series.
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a relative maximum or relative minimum value of a function in a given region.
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Logic. the subject or the predicate of the conclusion of a syllogism; either of two terms that are separated in the premises and brought together in the conclusion.
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Archaic. the utmost point, or extremity, of something.
adjective
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being of a high or of the highest degree or intensity
extreme cold
extreme difficulty
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exceeding what is usual or reasonable; immoderate
extreme behaviour
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very strict, rigid, or severe; drastic
an extreme measure
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(prenominal) farthest or outermost in direction
the extreme boundary
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meteorol of, relating to, or characteristic of a continental climate
noun
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the highest or furthest degree (often in the phrases in the extreme, go to extremes )
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(often plural) either of the two limits or ends of a scale or range of possibilities
extremes of temperature
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maths
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the first or last term of a series or a proportion
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a maximum or minimum value of a function
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logic the subject or predicate of the conclusion of a syllogism
Synonym Usage
See radical.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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extremenessnoun
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superextremenessnoun
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overextremeadjective
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quasi-extremeadjective
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superextremeadjective
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unextremeadjective
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superextremelyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of extreme
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English, from Latin extrēmus “most outward,” superlative of exterus “outward”; see exterior
Explanation
Something extreme is far out, either in terms of distance or intensity. Extreme sports are wild or dangerous, and an extreme height is very high. When you talk about extreme things, you're talking about things that are very, very...something. An extreme point is the farthest distance from a place. Extreme eating is a type of contest — like hot dog-eating — in which people eat a freakish amount of food to compete with each other. An extreme biker is biking down dangerously steep mountain sides. Anything extreme is pushing the limits and taking things about as far as they can go.
Vocabulary lists containing extreme
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Big Issue vendors are struggling to sell magazines in the UK's extreme heat, which is having an "immediate" impact on their earnings, Big Issue's managing director says.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
As the memory business evolves in the coming years, Sandisk’s management anticipates that the company will be able to maintain extreme profitability.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026
I pushed an idea to its extreme, but in so doing, I had to imagine the endless possibilities of our current, complicated modern day.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Nonetheless, prosecutors’ decision to seek the highest level of punishment reflects the extreme nature of Leticia’s alleged crimes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
Monotonous to the extreme, DNA seemed to be quite the opposite of Schrödinger’s imagined chemical—not just a stupid molecule but worse: a boring one.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
I just had to turn up the extremes when it came to Agnes, and really make sure to keep those things that she keeps close to her heart guarded.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
The tests were designed to verify that the company's sensors remain accurate across the temperature extremes they could encounter during descent to the lunar surface.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 11, 2026
What has been striking about this summer is not any single record, but the way weather extremes are piling up.
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026
Moving toward extremes also has the potential to produce rewards.
From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2026
Many had feared Farmer would be criticized for going to costly extremes to save one particular life, and that parents would besiege Zanmi Lasante with demands that their sick children be flown to Boston.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
As the necessity for severity decreases, severity even in social disapproval must lessen; as the individual comes to yield more readily and promptly to a slight spur, extremer methods will be discarded.
From A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution by C. M. Williams
He was like his father, the old laird, but there glowed an extremer dark anger and power.
From Foes by Mary Johnston
Hence the extremer Puritans were completely out of touch with the sensuous poetry of Christmas, a festival which, as we shall see, they actually suppressed when they came into power.
From Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan by Clement A. Miles
In other respects anarchism may be said to be but an extremer phase of socialism.
From Contemporary Socialism by John Rae
Why, with such a quick, analytical brain as his, he might have carried on Darwin's researches to an extremer point of the origination of species than has yet been reached!
From Ardath by Marie Corelli
The printing press, praised by Martin Luther as “God’s highest and extremest act of Grace,” led to the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation — and a century of bloody religious wars.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 20, 2016
Now even the extremest obscenities have lost their power to shock.
From The Guardian ● May 23, 2013
The President-elect said he hoped the ceremony would be "one of the extremest in simplicity that we have ever had."
From Time Magazine Archive
“There will never be such a thing in my house,” said Wang Lung, in extremest horror.
From "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck
Systematically to ignore these relations, then, is to act as if I were an egoist in the extremest sense, and held that there was no consciousness in the world except my own.
From A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution by C. M. Williams
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
