- extra
- 1650s as a stand-alone; modern usages -- including sense of "minor performer in a play" (1777) and "special edition of a newspaper" (1793) -- all probably are from shortenings of extraordinary, which was used extensively in 18c. as noun and adverb in places we would use extra today. The prefix extra- was only recorded in classical L. in extraordinarius, but has been much used in modern formations such as extraterrestrial, and represents the old fem. abl. of exterus "outward, outside."