English
exact
Exact comes from Latin exāctus ‘driven out, expelled, having been driven out’, and goes back to exigō ‘demand, claim as due’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEexigō1‘demand’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEexāctus1‘driven out’
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1599–1602exact1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English exact
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: “An exact command, Larded with many several sorts of…”.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEexigōWiktionary, English exact‘demand’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEexāctusWiktionary, English exact‘driven out’
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1599–1602exactWiktionary, English exact. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: “An exact command, Larded with many several sorts of…”
A compound of ex ‘out’ + agō ‘drive’
Proto-Indo-European *h₁eǵʰs ‘out’
Proto-Italic *eks
Latin ex ‘out’
Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ- ‘to drive’
Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti ‘to be driving’
Proto-Italic *agō ‘to drive’
Latin agō ‘drive’
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with exact, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
9 more relatives in the full family tree
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Today it means
adj Precisely agreeing with a standard, a fact, or the truth; perfectly conforming; neither exceeding nor falling short in any respect.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “exact”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Latin exigō / exact