extraordinary

1. 1
   adjective

   Very different from the ordinary; so unusual or exceptional that it stands out.

   She has an extraordinary talent for languages, picking up new ones in weeks.

   The rescue required extraordinary courage from everyone involved.

   Similarexceptional, remarkable, unusual, outstanding, amazing

   Oppositeordinary, unremarkable, commonplace, unexceptional

   Note

   Latin built this word from a phrase, extra ordinem, "outside the order," and English took the compound whole. On the surface it can also be read as extra- plus ordinary, which is why its meaning feels transparent. Its doublet is extraordinaire, from the same Latin. Shaw's Back to Methuselah (1921) plays the word for comedy, with a speaker whose proof of being extraordinary is a three-foot beard at birth.

2. 2
   adjective

   Remarkably good, to a degree that far surpasses what is typical or expected.

   Critics praised the novel as an extraordinary achievement in modern fiction.

   The wine had an extraordinary depth of flavor.

   Similaroutstanding, remarkable, exceptional, superb, phenomenal

   Oppositemediocre, ordinary, average, unremarkable

   Note

   Here the word stops describing and starts praising. An extraordinary poet is a superb one, not merely an unusual one. In contrast, the plain "unusual" meaning passes no judgment: in Tom Fordyce's BBC report, the 2011 Rugby World Cup final was extraordinary because it defied every prediction, not because it was beautiful. When the difference matters, a word like superb or strange makes clear which one you mean.

3. 3
   adjective

   Employed for a special purpose or in addition to the regular staff or schedule, as in certain official titles and meetings.

   Shareholders convened an extraordinary general meeting to approve the merger.

   The committee held an extraordinary session outside its normal schedule.

   Similarspecial

   Oppositeordinary, regular

   Note

   The Latin "outside the order" behind the everyday sense is clearest in this official use: outside the regular staff or schedule. In royal titles the adjective follows the noun, as in physician extraordinary. Elsewhere it comes first, as in an extraordinary professor in a German university. Do not hear praise in it. An extraordinary general meeting is simply one called outside the normal calendar.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   Something that goes beyond what is ordinary; the remarkable or exceptional considered as a category in itself.

   Her photography finds the extraordinary in everyday street scenes.

   He was always chasing the extraordinary, restless with anything routine.

   Similarexceptional, unusual

   Oppositeordinary, mundane, commonplace

   Note

   A noun that once had a working plural. The New Annual Register of 1787 divides a year's spending into the ordinary and the extraordinaries, meaning the regular costs and the ones beyond them. Today the noun usually appears as the extraordinary, with the definite article and no plural, naming the remarkable as a category, as in finding the extraordinary in everyday life.

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