Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Growing out abnormally, excessively, or superfluously.
  • adjective Linguistics Of or relating to epenthesis; epenthetic.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Growing out of something else; specifically, abnormally put forth or added; hence, superfluous and incongruous: as, a wart is an excrescent growth on the hand; excrescent knots on a tree; excrescent ornaments on a dress or on a building.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Growing out in an abnormal or morbid manner or as a superfluity.
  • adjective (Philol.) a letter which has been added to a root

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Something growing, usually abnormally, out of something else.
  • noun phonetics A sound in a word without etymological reason.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective forming an outgrowth (usually an excessive outgrowth)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin excrēscēns, present participle of excrēscō.

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Examples

  • These were the facts which really suggested his theory of the 'excrescent' population, produced by the over-speculation of capitalists.

    The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) James Mill Leslie Stephen 1868

  • Scot actively engaged in parochial work, had his attention fixed upon the reckless improvidence of the 'excrescent' population, and welcomed

    The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) James Mill Leslie Stephen 1868

  • She has been flanked on policing issues by Greenwood-Aurora Involved Neighbors (GAIN), who stepped up the heat a degree or two after seeing a big spillover of crime from the excrescent Aurora Avenue North vice strip into their residential neighborhoods to the west, and after documenting types of crime, locations and slow or non-existent police response.

    Sound Politics: Pressure Building For More Seattle Cops 2006

  • He was aided and abetted in this essential side of the supreme crime by the excrescent ‘ Lord Haw Haw’ Andrew Sullivan.

    Firedoglake » And In This Corner…Juan Cole 2006

  • Note decisions 5 and 6 to the same Law, the former showing a similar application of the "rule" and the latter showing that who clauses escape the excrescent commas:Decision 5

    languagehat.com: WHICH-HUNTING AT FIFA. 2005

  • It's the modern form (with an excrescent, or epenthetic, -s- from somewhere or other, perhaps harvest) of the Old English ofet 'fruit' (spelled obet in early glosses), which is related to German Obst.

    languagehat.com: OVEST. 2005

  • So you're probably looking at the name actually being Pikni, with the excrescent vowel inserted between the two parts to help it conform to custom.

    languagehat.com: BIKINI. 2005

  • But I have found, during my travels in the Mediterranean, many persons of education, who pretended they did not believe this or that superstition of their church, whilst they were at heart great cowards, having no courage to reject a popular falsehood, and quite as superstitious as those who never doubt the excrescent dogmas or traditionary fables of their religion.

    Travels in Morocco 2003

  • You are regarded an excrescent growth on the body of civil society.

    Twentieth Century Negro Literature Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro Daniel Wallace [Editor] Culp

  • Glandular enlargements not of scirrhous character, and excrescent growths not poisonous, may often be reduced, and perhaps sometimes cured, under the positive pole.

    A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication Daniel Clark

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