Emily Dickinson Lexicon

EX-TREME, n.

1. The utmost point or verge of a thing; that part which terminates a body; extremity.
2. Utmost point; furthest degree; as, the extremes of heat and cold; the extremes of virtue and vice. Avoid extremes. Extremes naturally beget each other. There is a natural progression from the extreme of anarchy to the extreme of tyranny. Washington.
3. In logic, the extremes, or extreme terms of a syllogism are the predicate and subject. Thus, “Man is an animal; Peter is a man, therefore Peter is an animal;” the word animal is the greater extreme, Peter the less extreme, and man the medium. Encyc.
4. In mathematics, the extremes are the first and last terms of a proportion; as, when three magnitudes are proportional, the rectangle contained by the extremes is equal to the square of the mean. Euclid.