extreme

 
Pronunciation: /ɪkˈstriːm, ɛk-/

adjective

  • 1reaching a high or the highest degree; very great: extreme cold
  • not usual; exceptional: in extreme cases the soldier may be discharged
  • very severe or serious: expulsion is an extreme sanction
  • (of a person or their opinions) far from moderate, especially politically: groups of his more extreme supporters rioted in front of parliament
  • denoting or relating to a sport performed in a hazardous environment and involving great risk, such as white-water rafting: extreme sports like snowboarding
  • 2 [attributive] furthest from the centre or a given point: the extreme north-west of Scotland

noun

  • 1either of two abstract things that are as different from each other as possible: we represented opposite extremes of college society—he a member of the Old Guard, I one of the radicals
  • the highest or most extreme degree of something: extremes of temperature
  • a very severe or serious measure: the extreme of applying for poor relief
  • 2 Logic the subject or predicate in a proposition, or the major or minor term in a syllogism (as contrasted with the middle term).

Phrases

extremes meet

proverb opposite extremes have much in common.

go (or take something) to extremes

take an extreme course of action; do something to an extreme degree: they took a commendable anti-ageist policy to extremes

in the extreme

to an extreme degree: the reasoning was convoluted in the extreme

Derivatives

extremeness

noun

Origin:

late Middle English: via Old French from Latin extremus 'outermost, utmost', superlative of exterus 'outer'

Spelling help

Remember that the ending of extreme is spelled -eme.