Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An outgrowth or enlargement, especially an abnormal one, such as a wart.
- n. A usually unwanted or unnecessary accretion: "Independent agencies were an excrescence on the Constitution” ( Los Angeles Times).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An abnormal superficial growth or appendage, as a wart or tubercle; anything which grows unnaturally, and without organic use, out of something else, as nutgalls; hence, a superfluity; a disfiguring addition.
- n. Figuratively, an extravagant or excessive outbreak: as, “excrescences of joy,”
Wiktionary
- n. Something, usually abnormal, which grows out of something else.
- n. A disfiguring or unwanted mark or adjunct
- n. phonetics epenthesis of a consonant
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An excrescent appendage, as, a wart or tumor; anything growing out unnaturally from anything else; a preternatural or morbid development; hence, a troublesome superfluity; an incumbrance.
WordNet 3.0
- n. something that bulges out or is protuberant or projects from its surroundings
- n. (pathology) an abnormal outgrowth or enlargement of some part of the body
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Latin excrēscentia, from neuter pl. of excrēscēns, excrēscent-, present participle of excrēscere, to grow out : ex-, ex- + crēscere, to grow; see ker-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Let us also note that the lower pole expands into the umbilical excrescence, which is less easy of perforation than those parts protected by the skin alone.”
“During the first year he has no horns, but a horny excrescence, which is short and rough, and covered with a thin hairy skin.”
“Directly across Tremont Street from the corner where I stood was the entrance to the Old Burying Ground, which occupies a kind of excrescence of land off Boston Common-that is, the area is attached but not a part of the Common proper.”
“In Sussex, the peculiar excrescence which is often found on the”
“Only in the north-west corner was a little place jutting out from the great wall, a kind of excrescence or loop, no doubt used in the old distrustful days for observation, where it was possible to sit really unseen, because between it and the house was a thick clump of daphne.”
“Only the north-west corner was a little place jutting out from the great wall, a kind of excrescence or loop, no doubt used in the old distrustful days for observation, where it was possible to sit really unseen, because between it and the house was a thick clump of daphne.”
“The egg of the bird breaks clumsily under the blows of a wart-like excrescence which is formed expressly upon the beak of the unborn bird; the egg of the Cricket, of a far superior structure, opens like an ivory casket.”
“But the vegetable substance in which the gallic acid most abounds is _nutgall_, a kind of excrescence that grows on oaks, and from which the acid is commonly obtained for its various purposes.”
“She brings with her the excrescence which is found upon the forehead of a new-cast foal, of the size of a dried fig, and which unless first eaten by the mare, the mother never admits her young to the nourishment of her milk.”
“Tree immediately, and to be a kind of excrescence, or a substance distinct from the substances of the entire Tree, something _analogus_ to the”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘excrescence’.
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Mirrored Vowels
Rules:
• The word must have an even number of vowels.
• There must be four or more vowels; thus, at minimum, an A-A-A-A or A-B-B-A pattern.
• The vowels must appear in a mir...feminine, solicitor, caruncular, repackager, semiprimes, fetishises, decomposer, demonlover, recomposer, sepultures, lipotropic, colesterol and 385 more...
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From reading
Collected from reading
venerate, reprobate, reticent, adoration, ethereal, ephemeral, equivocal, contumacious, heinous, solicitous, agnostic, aberration and 335 more...
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#faveword
Words chosen as favorites for the Twitter hashtag #faveword.
autumnal, grotto, chiaroscuro, sfumato, homunculus, zing, zest, effervescent, bewitch, avuncular, susurrus, Styrofoam and 205 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 503 more...
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Lyeneia's Field Journal
footnotes and add-ons from the gap-lands.
limey, apostate, conflagrate, kindle, dispossess, provenience, reckless malice, honking didactica..., consequential exi..., morainal, morae, compass and 28 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Joycean Vocab
You ain't read no English til you read Joyce.
rasher, cygnet, usquebaugh, ephebe, entelechy, kish, caul, vicereine, atelier, daguerreotype, communard, connubial and 99 more...
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All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
tatterdemalion, panopticon, idioglossia, hypnagogue, hypnopomp, defenestration, anacoluthon, scofflaw, affront, edifying, palimpsest, naufrage and 476 more...
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The Ex-acting Xray
Out of this world via the "X-express".
exorbitant, exuberant, extant, exultant, expectorate, exhilarate, excommunicate, exacting, extenuate, exculpate, extirpate, expostulate and 110 more...
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Joe's list
Fissiparous Weekly Standard Nigeria a fissiparous country 3/2012
fissiparous, inchoate, punctilious, synecdoche, apocryphal, superadd, pedant, pedagogy, astigmatic, inter alia, aphoristically, eponymous and 131 more...
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Awesome Words, Part 2: More Common
pilgrim, indubitably, incorrigible, bombastic, histrionics, depredation, perspicuity, discombobulate, peregrination, ambulatory, redux, fractious and 164 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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The Innocents Abroad
Words rounded up while reading The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain.
rakish, excursionist, bowelless, pilgrimizing, melodeon, woebegone, abaft, sextant, veriest, behindhand, stanchion, avast and 188 more...
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Big Book #2 List
absolution, restitution, contrition, moratorium, nautical, nirvana, pandemonium, perennial, symposium, dialectic, dipsomaniacal, ecumenical and 117 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for excrescence.

milosrdenstvi Goes well with keratinous. "My keratinous excrescences have been rather growing rapidly of late!" Aug 23, 2008
kad "They had taken supper, an inedible excrescence, at a restaurant across the parking lot, in a booth beneath a faux Tiffany lamp, served by a spotty high school girl with an eerily keen smile and an imposingly cleft chin."
-- The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud (page 454) Oct 29, 2007
oroboros Why not post the actual sentence/citation for those without time or resource to find the book? May 28, 2007
grammar Bottom of page 65 of Life With Jeeves by Wodehouse. May 28, 2007