How to use extraneous in a sentence

11 example sentences · adjective

Extraneous means not belonging to, or dependent upon, a thing; without or beyond a thing; foreign. Example: “Extraneous substances were found on my cup of water.”

Examples of extraneous by meaning

adjectiveNot belonging to, or dependent upon, a thing; without or beyond a thing; foreign.

to separate gold from extraneous matter
Extraneous substances were found on my cup of water.

adjectiveNot essential or intrinsic.

Where workers poured the additional 11-foot-wide strip of foundation, for example, an extraneous column remains, and differences in the finish of the floor can be seen.2026 May, Julie Belcove, “Farm Fresh”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 92
Reading has come to seem extraneous even to some of the best-educated members of society.2026 July 8, Rose Horowitch, “The End of Reading Is Here”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic...

More sentences with extraneous

In the Sibelian world of song, then, postludes would inevitably sound redundant or extraneous.2023, Gustav Djupsjöbacka, The Songs of Jean Sibelius: Poetry, Music, Performance, page 81. From the entry postlude
I want to be held accountable for my spending and I want to cut out extraneous expenses.2011 December 30, Piper June, “A New Year”, in Believing in June, retrieved 27 Jul 2015. From the entry geeked
Many formalisms for belief revision use extraneous mechanisms for deciding what beliefs to keep and this makes it harder to iterate the process.2010, Dov M. Gabbay, Franz Guenthner, editors, Handbook of Philosophical Logic, volume 16, page 37. From the entry revision
Furthermore, the issue has now taken on the extraneous but tindersome question of Ecuador's pride in standing up to the northern giant.1971, ISLA, volume 2, page 162. From the entry tindersome
The typesetters' quotation system causes extraneous characters to be placed inside the quotes; this has no effect in poetry but is a serious problem when accuracy is important.2015 September 19 [1999], David A. Wheeler, Secure Programming HOWTO – Creating Secure Software, version 3.72, retrieved 23 Sep 2015. From the entry logical quotation
In this highly ambitious work Harris has stripped the conceptual matrix of all extraneous plot, characterisation and conclusion to bring us a maestropiece of aconsonant disavowel and non-alliterative desymbolisation.1998 December 30, Ron Clark, “tester”, in uk.rec.sheds (Usenet), archived from the original on 03 Jan 2026. From the entry maestropiece
In an attack of studently compulsivity, an attack that greatly influenced my scholarly future, I did a statistical analysis that was extraneous to the main purpose of the dissertation.1993, Peter David Blanck, Interpersonal Expectations. From the entry studently

Meaning of extraneous

adjective Not belonging to, or dependent upon, a thing; without or beyond a thing; foreign.
adjective Not essential or intrinsic.

Full definition of extraneous

Questions about extraneous in a sentence

How do you use extraneous in a sentence?: Extraneous is used as an adjective. For example: “Extraneous substances were found on my cup of water.”
What is a short sentence with extraneous?: “to separate gold from extraneous matter”
What does extraneous mean?: Extraneous means not belonging to, or dependent upon, a thing; without or beyond a thing; foreign.

Adapted from Wiktionary: extraneous (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use extraneous in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/extraneous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.