Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Surplus; excess; redundancy.
- n. In law, any allegation or statement in a pleading or proceeding not necessary to its adequacy. It implies that the superfiuous matter is such that its omission would not impair the true meaning nor the right of the party, but that to attempt to give it effect would obscure the meaning or impair the right.
Wiktionary
- n. A surplus; a superabundance.
- n. law Matter in pleading which is not necessary or relevant to the case, and may be rejected.
- n. finance A greater disbursement than the charge of the accountant amounts to.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Surplus; excess; overplus.
- n. (Law) Matter in pleading which is not necessary or relevant to the case, and which may be rejected.
- n. (Accounts), obsolete A greater disbursement than the charge of the accountant amounts to.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a quantity much larger than is needed
Etymologies
- From Medieval Latin surplusagium, from surplus. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Avoiding surplusage is important, especially since judges have enough to read.”
“Furthermore I said to him, “O my brother, I am wont to cast up my shop accounts at the head of every year, and whatso I shall find of surplusage is between me and thee.””
“Evidently, then, self-sacrifice may be wide-spread and may permeate the institutions of ordinary life; being found even in occupations primarily ordered by principles of give and take, where it expresses itself in a kind of surplusage of giving above what is prescribed in the contract.”
“The hypothesis of female preference, stripped of the aesthetic surplusage which is psychologically both unnecessary and unproven, is really only different in degree from that which Mr. Wallace admits in principle when he says that it is probable that the female is pleased or excited by the display.”
“surplusage" as though he were to give a written declaration that he was”
Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General
“And the olive, a mere surplusage perhaps, but without it, the martini is too modest, too plain”
Fictionaut: With Emily Dickinson as Walt Whitman Walks in the Bar
“It seems she has only to look at a dish, no matter who has cooked it, and immediately divine its lack or its surplusage, and prescribe a treatment that transforms it into something indescribably different and delicious -- My, how I do eat!”
“Instead, we conclude that the General Assembly removed this phrase because it was aware of our prior decisions and the constitutional import of the detriment to the child determination, and believed that including the detriment to the child language — which referenced a long-standing constitutional standard that existed independent of the statute itself — was mere surplusage.”
““Gun box” and “case” have the same meaning (rendering one term in a list mere surplusage) if we say so.”
“By the way, I agree with Richard Riley that “and subject to the police power thereof” is a surplusage, and such surplusage may actually turn out to be quite dangerous.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Help Draft the Federalism Restoration Amendment
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘surplusage’.
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There oughta be a law
there oughta be a..., law, flaw, slaw, cole slaw, lawyer, lawn, Lucy Lawless, lawn ornament, John Law, claw, rollaway and 54 more...
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Swishy Burbles
Words with a certain flowing, silly sound to them; I may as well have found them in a James Joyce novel.
podlec, shuckling, woofits, splenetic, wodges, dromedary, chickabiddy, doodsmak, plashoot, clawscrunt, dwergmal, wherrit and 159 more...
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new acquisitions
found in the wild (i.e., not on Wordie!)
samara, indehiscent, paschal, rogation, wen, rete, diriment, epicene, duramen, euhemerism, objurgate, canaille and 429 more...
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s@tifur's
contumacious, obdurate, ply, peremptory, flout, countenance, coy, polemic, welter, cremnophobia, pertness, effrontery and 55 more...
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gamble73's Words
superfluous, irascible, scandalous, cliche, twinkle, proverbial, dabble, didactic, miscreant, inane, ruckus, prolixity and 7 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for surplusage.
bilby An excess of sausages. Aug 15, 2008