Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To do or be better than; surpass.
- v. To show superiority; surpass others.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To surpass in respect to something; be superior to; outdo in comparison; transcend, usually in something good or commendable, but sometimes in that which is bad or indifferent.
- To exceed or be beyond.
- To have certain qualities, or to perform certain actions, in an unusual degree; be remarkable, distinguished, or eminent for superiority in any respect; surpass others.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive To surpass someone or something; to be better or do better than someone or something.
- v. intransitive To be much better than others.
- v. rare To exceed, to go beyond
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To go beyond or surpass in good qualities or laudable deeds; to outdo or outgo, in a good sense.
- v. To exceed or go beyond; to surpass.
- v. To surpass others in good qualities, laudable actions, or acquirements; to be distinguished by superiority.
WordNet 3.0
- v. distinguish oneself
Etymologies
- Latin excellere, excelsum; ex out + a root found in culmen height, top; Compare French exceller. See also culminate, column. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English excellen, from Latin excellere; see kel-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Not to mention that doing, say, solver in excel is slow on anything other than a fairly recent vintage PC.”
Memetic Suicide, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Before I just had a single rather messy page in excel with stories down one side and markets across the top.”
“Yep, asking children to stay in school and try to excel is truly a socialist agenda, isn't it?”
“Of course these are published as PDFs - which seems particularly obtuse as the tables themselves were probably put together in excel in the first place.”
The Guardian: Government spending by department, 2009-10: get the data
“Well, part of this depends on how one counts subjects (how many subjects did Einstein excel in?), and on how one determines who the brightest people are.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Too Smart to Become the Chess World Champion?
“Where Indian and other Asian programs excel is at routine math - more a function of students being drilled or pushed at home by parents.”
Start-Up Teaches Math to Americans, Indian-Style - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
“That these young players excel is a credit to the older players.”
“The drugs enhance only their physical strength, not their emotional strength - the desire to excel is what spurs them to improve themselves.”
“(Jeff Jarvis has written a very key post on newspaper vs online revenue and how to manage the transition ... and linked to another one .. hot day here .. been in excel and powerpoint all day and need injection of energy)”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘excel’.
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Brand Theft Auto
A marque list for cars--models or companies who've used common words as their name.
explorer, navigator, frontier, mustang, quest, cougar, sidekick, legend, legacy, ranger, voyager, civic and 266 more...
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RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
wrath, leaf, belly, prey, death, break, six, nod, dim, end, inn, judge and 1286 more...
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EN - eloquence in public speaking
Key words from "The Training of a Public Speaker" by Grenville Kleiser (New York and London, 1920)
beget, imago, Vespasian, languid, studied, judgment, dwindle, artifice, contribute, observe, sonorous, gladiator and 264 more...
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LIT - Iliad - key words and protagonists
depict, delegation, daughter, Dardanus, Dardanian, Dardan, Hellespont, cupbearer, Crete, Cretan, Creon, copulate and 713 more...
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Go to work on an egg
Words which - with a modicum of tolerance in pronunciation - sound like ways of cooking eggs.
exacerbate, exculpate, exclamatory, exhume, expansion, expeditious, explicit, expostulate, expunge, extortionate, extravaganza, exultant and 31 more...
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Wild Ees
For words containing at least two instances of the letter E.
cerebration, concupiscence, flatulence, breed, screed, tweed, bleed, feed, steed, speed, deed, weed and 9 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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Library Reference Desk Words
computer, reference, desk, phone, im, chat, e-mail, catalog, citation, style, transfer, number and 133 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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Absolute Favorites
ethereal, chiasmus, vengeance, voracious, traverse, embrace, instinct, blasphemy, in-depth, passionate, obsessive, bliss and 48 more...
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Abbreviate
Is there a name for this type of word?
expediency, obediency, eminency, enemy, arrestee, escapee, ogee, beady, essay, effigy, elegy, tennessee and 59 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for excel.
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