Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Being an exception; uncommon.
- adj. Well above average; extraordinary: an exceptional memory. See Usage Note at exceptionable.
- adj. Deviating widely from a norm, as of physical or mental ability: special educational provisions for exceptional children.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Relating to or forming an exception; contrary to the rule; out of the regular or ordinary course.
- Synonyms Irregular, unusual, uncommou, unnatural, peculiar, anomalous.
Wiktionary
- adj. Forming an exception; not ordinary; uncommon; rare.
- adj. Better than the average; superior due to rarity.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Forming an exception; not ordinary; uncommon; rare; hence, better than the average; superior.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. deviating widely from a norm of physical or mental ability; used especially of children below normal in intelligence
- adj. far beyond what is usual in magnitude or degree
- adj. surpassing what is common or usual or expected
Examples
“Hours before the vote, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner praised what he called her "exceptional talent and broad experience.”
“His book is full of examples of what he calls "exceptional patients" who used their illness experience to give themselves permission to find their true, authentic selves and in so doing, creatively induced a type of self-healing.”
The Huffington Post: Trish Kinney: Healing Is More Than Science
“We have got some very extreme drought conditions into the southwest but it's right here in the Southeast where we have what we call exceptional drought.”
“Suppose some strange fancy had seized upon my imagination -- that is the doctor's cant word for all phenomena which we call exceptional -- some strange fancy that”
“The German court found that enacting any data retention legislation requires a regard for what it termed the exceptional intensity of the interference with human rights that result from such measures.”
“In another development, Egypt closed the Rafah crossing to all but what it called exceptional cases on Thursday.”
“Now, after five years of her daughter receiving what she calls exceptional care, Zeller is concerned the hospital will close, forcing her to travel to and from her Suffield home to Boston - a trip three times as long - to find another pediatrician who specializes in childhood arthritis.”
“Now, I've left aside numerous issues -- you rarely know * whether* the subject actually has the intel you seek, or is even really a "bad guy" -- torture is most useful for extracting confessions to what you want to hear (historically, that's how it's been used) -- and once torture is condoned in "exceptional" cases, it tends to quickly spread, because everything starts to look like a nail when you have a hammer.”
“WOODRUFF: Senator, I want to come back to something you said earlier, I think you used the word exceptional and unique about being an American.”
“At a time that some described as exceptional, how much would some have given for having Cuba vote yes on this resolution.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘exceptional’.
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Politically Correct Terms
It's fun to find the politically incorrect equivalents. To see more (lesser common but still funny ones) check http://www.bored.com/pcphrases/
fellow Muslims, ageing population, gender mainstreaming, emerging democracies, mentally challeng..., intellectually di..., African American, native American, first nations, Caucasian, firefighter, police officer and 205 more...
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CULI - wine-tasting adjectives
In this area of expertise nouns are frequently used as adjectives (almond, bacon, cider, diesel, fennel, fresh-cut hay, wool) or new adjectives are formed (appley, berrylike, citrusy, full-bodied, ...
acetic, acidic, aged, angular, appley, astringent, attractive, austere, berrylike, big, bitter, brawny and 511 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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Twitter faves
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
niglets, aw, flakey, shiznit, thatch, sexy, bummers, hotty, eargasms, ratchetry, weird, fab and 599 more... -
service
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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The History of Cool
Words that mean "cool" around the world and through the ages.
cool, awesome, wild, stylin', groovy, neat, nifty, swell, great, tubular, radical, bitchin' and 188 more...
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conceptwriter's Words
sloth, jackass, dickhead, technostalgic, futuristic, enigma, impact, addict, nasty, premium, extraordinaire, yearning and 262 more...
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wordsmithing part deux
because wordsmith is not a verb.
enmity, incarnate, chignon, nape, solitude, nocturne, decorum, warren, svelte, interstice, serene, charlotte and 488 more...
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oneasterism's words
Words that I like, that I don't use often enough, that are new to me, that friends and family have taught me, and so on.
lugubrious, reticent, eschelon, missive, penchant, copious, conspicuous, tranquil, redolent, asinine, inane, dilatory and 625 more...
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Words That Populate My Mind
This is a collection of words I love, old ones that I love the sound of when I repeat them for years and new ones coined in news articles on up and coming trends and technologies - most of them I k...
aroma, mojo, blithely, fringe, fray, synchronicity, doublespeak, buzzword, thoughtcrime, portmanteau, newspeak, oldspeak and 963 more...
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_mark's list
Words I like!
( personal list, favorite words, randomness )psy, nanobot, success, smack, vibration, microcosmic, springgraph, marksmanship, estranged, homoerotic, flex, fiasco and 1707 more...
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useful vocab
pysmatic, relentless, storge, preamble, oscillate, itinerary, frolic, frolicsome, abdicate, frolicking, divergent, abnegate and 312 more...
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eloise's Words
embrace, perfect, imagine, dance, water, color, echo, hollow, sorrow, beauty, impossible, violet and 438 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for exceptional.
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