excrescent

ex·cres·cent

(ĭk-skrĕs′ənt)

adj.

1. Growing out abnormally, excessively, or superfluously.

2. Linguistics Of or relating to epenthesis; epenthetic.

ex·cres′cent·ly adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

excrescent

(ɪkˈskrɛsənt)

adj

1. (Pathology) denoting, relating to, or resembling an abnormal outgrowth

2. uselessly added; not essential; superfluous

3. (Phonetics & Phonology) denoting or relating to a speech sound or letter inserted into a word without etymological justification, such as the b in nimble

[C17: from Latin excrēscēns, from excrēscere, from crēscere to grow]

exˈcrescently adv

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ex•cres•cent

(ɪkˈskrɛs ənt)

adj.

1. growing abnormally out of something else; superfluous.

2. (of a speech sound) inserted or added as a result of articulatory interaction or impetus, as the t-sound in sense (sents); intrusive; parasitic.

[1600–10; < Latin excrēscent-, s. of excrēscēns, present participle of excrēscere to grow out]

ex•cres′cent•ly, adv.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

excrescent - forming an outgrowth (usually an excessive outgrowth)

Mentioned in ?

References in classic literature ?

Out of this lifeless mass has already grown an excrescent power, which tends to realize all the dangers that can be apprehended from a defective construction of the supreme government of the Union.

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("Deceit" outputs from an ingeniously creative reading by John of my 1977 text "What Lingers On (, when the Song is Ended".) But I think this is another excrescent virtualizing device, a symptom of the core recognition/cognition problem: is identity contingent on identification?

Music as anti-theatre: a text about some writings by John Rahn

(Among his other accomplishments is the assemblage of an "excrescent" collection of Hawaiian leisure shirts, according to the OpenCola Web site.)

OpenCola Creates Collaborative Computing Solutions for Content Communities

The basic tenet was that the servicing of the building should be part of and contribute to the design of the building rather than comprising excrescent accessories that detract from it.

Urban futures: Generating dynamic, attractive and sustainable communities

Doran's staging was elegantly uncluttered with excessive movement or excrescent business.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

For example, in Bugau [mandok] 'roast (chicken)' but [manok] 'chicken'; whereas in Mualang [manok] 'roast (a chicken)', without the phonetic realization of the stop/d/, contrasts with [mano[eta]k] 'chicken' marked by the presence of nasalization and an excrescent nasal consonant before final k.

Ibanic languages in Kalimantan Barat, Indonesia: exploring nomenclature, distribution and characteristics

Even more than Wells, Disch stresses the total indifference of the aliens to the monuments of human civilization, excrescent 'artifacts' they are capable of wiping away as casually as a farmer uproots weeds; as one character bitterly muses:

Biotic invasions: ecological imperialism in new wave science fiction

There's an additional gripe, that the very details that make a building come alive for the casual visitor - the historical connections, the people who lived there, its use and contents - are matters of excrescent irrelevance to Pevsner.

Growth of the pocket book of buildings; LOCALHISTORY Pevsner's once pocket-sized bible of local history and architecture is still gaining ground, in popularity and size

Oddity is no part of solid artistic development; however beautiful or impressive, it is rather an excrescent outgrowth, bound to prove abortive, and at the same time to sap life from the parent stock which without it might grow more loftily and strongly.

Barrett Wendell: New England orderly idealist

Yet in fact that Latin phrase, its own reflexivity foiled by an excrescent "n," manifests in Horse Latitudes a problem with language that is also a problem in war and in love: embeddedness.

Paul Muldoon's carryings on

He became so weak that he had to be carried behind on a stretcher, and died a few days later, just as the expedition entered the Tibetan village of Kampa Dzong, where the team caught their first sight of Everest ('A prodigious white fang excrescent from the jaw of the world,' Mallory wrote).

Dr Alexander Kellas's camera: used during the first official expedition to Mount Everest in 1921

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