The Collaborative International Dictionary
Extreme \Ex*treme"\, n.
The utmost point or verge; that part which terminates a body; extremity.
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Utmost limit or degree that is supposable or tolerable; hence, furthest degree; any undue departure from the mean; -- often in the plural: things at an extreme distance from each other, the most widely different states, etc.; as, extremes of heat and cold, of virtue and vice; extremes meet.
His parsimony went to the extreme of meanness.
--Bancroft. An extreme state or condition; hence, calamity, danger, distress, etc. ``Resolute in most extremes.''
--Shak.(Logic) Either of the extreme terms of a syllogism, the middle term being interposed between them.
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(Math.) The first or the last term of a proportion or series.
In the extreme as much as possible. ``The position of the Port was difficult in the extreme.''
--J. P. Peters.
Usage examples of "in the extreme".
Emergency in space was improbable in the extreme, but who would dare disturb him for anything less?
I consider the proposal to send the Standing Naval Force to disrupt these perfectly legitimate Soviet naval exercises is unjustified, dangerous in the extreme, and, in the sense that such provocation and resultant confrontation could well lead to the outbreak of full-scale war, highly irresponsible.