The size, length, or amount of something. It is often used to talk about how far something reaches or how serious or complete it is.
From Latin *extentus* ‘stretched out’, from *extendere* ‘to stretch out’. It moved from the idea of being stretched to the measure of how far that stretch goes.
Whenever you ask ‘to what extent?,’ you’re really asking ‘how far does this stretch?’—in size, seriousness, or truth. The word quietly turns abstract things like damage or responsibility into something you could imagine measuring with a ruler.
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