v. [f. L. extrīcāt- ppl. stem of extrīcāre to disentangle, f. ex- (see EX- pref.1) + trīcæ perplexities.]
1. trans. To unravel (what is tangled); fig. to clear of intricacies or perplexities. Now rare.
1614. Selden, Titles Hon., 384. Neither do I see any Ciuilian able to extricat it enough cleanly.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. i. 40. This … extricateth that Question which hath so troubled the World.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 350. Thou extricatest the involved threds of Fate.
1684. Ray, Corr. (1848), 139. Extricating what is perplex and entangled.
1849–50. Alison, Hist. Europe, III. xvii. § 14. 496. Some method of extricating public affairs.
2. To disentangle (a person or thing); to disengage, set free from, out of (anything that entangles, a state of confinement, difficulty or entanglement).
a. 1631. Donne, in Select. (1840), 181. If we search farther into these points, than the Scripture hath opened us a way, how shall we hope to unentangle, or extricate themselves?
1654. True State Commw., 24. The sense of law could neuer have been extricated out of endless intanglements.
1665. Hooke, Micrographia, 37. All the Springs of the several parts are set at liberty, which immediately extricate themselves and fly asunder every way.
a. 1732. T. Boston, Crook in Lot (1805), 12. A thicket, out of which he knows not how to extricate himself.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., V. 388. Extricate yourselves from prejudice.
1863. Fr. A. Kemble, Resid. in Georgia, 46. Having at length extricated myself from the group.
1866. Owen, Anat. Vertebrates, I. xii. § 120. 635. The rest [of the development of the embryo] is completed and the young extricated in … two months.
1870. Disraeli, Lothair, I. vii. 49. Lothair had promised to extricate his friend from his overwhelming difficulties.
b. Chem. To liberate, disengage (gas, etc.) from a state of combination.
1790. Keir, in Phil. Trans., LXXX. 365. The quantity of nitrous gas extricated during this action on the tin.
1838. T. Thomson, Chem. Org. Bodies, 19. The atom of water may be extricated from the acid.
1875. Ure’s Dict. Arts, III. 557. The carbonic acid and other offensive gases … extricated.
Hence Extricated ppl. a.
1657. Reeve, God’s Plea, 29. If man which is but an implicated and mixt Agent, how much more God [may lord it], who is an extricated and free Agent?
