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. 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.
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.”
Beacon Street Mourning
“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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#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 414 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...
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