PROTRACT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does protract mean? 

• PROTRACT (verb)
  The verb PROTRACT has 1 sense:

1. lengthen in time; cause to be or last longer

  Familiarity information: PROTRACT used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PROTRACT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they protract    ... he / she / it protracts   
Past simple: protracted   
Past participle: protracted   
-ing form: protracting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lengthen in time; cause to be or last longer

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

draw out; extend; prolong; protract

Context example:

The meeting was drawn out until midnight

Hypernyms (to "protract" is one way to...):

lengthen (make longer)

Verb group:

carry; extend (continue or extend)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "protract"):

extend (prolong the time allowed for payment of)

temporise; temporize (draw out a discussion or process in order to gain time)

spin; spin out (prolong or extend)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

protraction (the act of prolonging something)

protraction (the consequence of being lengthened in duration)

 Context examples 

And the man seemed resolved to protract it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It could be protracted no longer.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I am prepared to agree with our colleague that a protracted stay in Maple White Land is at present inadvisable, and that the question of our return will soon have to be faced.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The brief Alaskan summer protracted itself beyond its usual length, and they took advantage of the opportunity, delaying their return to Skaguay to the last moment.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Meltwater ponds fracturing the ice below them may not cause protracted chain reactions that unexpectedly collapse floating ice shelves.

(Reframing the dangers Antarctica's meltwater ponds pose to ice shelves and sea level, National Science Foundation)

“I will not,” said Mrs. Micawber, finishing her punch, and gathering her scarf about her shoulders, preparatory to her withdrawal to my bedroom: “I will not protract these remarks on the subject of Mr. Micawber's pecuniary affairs. At your fireside, my dear Mr. Copperfield, and in the presence of Mr. Traddles, who, though not so old a friend, is quite one of ourselves, I could not refrain from making you acquainted with the course I advise Mr. Micawber to take. I feel that the time is arrived when Mr. Micawber should exert himself and—I will add—assert himself, and it appears to me that these are the means. I am aware that I am merely a female, and that a masculine judgement is usually considered more competent to the discussion of such questions; still I must not forget that, when I lived at home with my papa and mama, my papa was in the habit of saying, “Emma's form is fragile, but her grasp of a subject is inferior to none.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Old One Eye was not interested at all, but he followed her good-naturedly in her quest, and when her investigations in particular places were unusually protracted, he would lie down and wait until she was ready to go on.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

When I had arrived at this point and had become as well acquainted with the theory and practice of natural philosophy as depended on the lessons of any of the professors at Ingolstadt, my residence there being no longer conducive to my improvements, I thought of returning to my friends and my native town, when an incident happened that protracted my stay.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

She went, however, and they sauntered about together many an half-hour in Mrs. Grant's shrubbery, the weather being unusually mild for the time of year, and venturing sometimes even to sit down on one of the benches now comparatively unsheltered, remaining there perhaps till, in the midst of some tender ejaculation of Fanny's on the sweets of so protracted an autumn, they were forced, by the sudden swell of a cold gust shaking down the last few yellow leaves about them, to jump up and walk for warmth.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I should wish now to protract this moment ad infinitum; but I dare not.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)