Definitions

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

  • noun Surplus; excess.
  • noun An excess of words; verbiage.
  • noun Law Words or allegations in a legal document or pleading that do not have any legal value.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Surplus; excess; redundancy.
  • noun In law, any allegation or statement in a pleading or proceeding not necessary to its adequacy.

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

  • noun Surplus; excess; overplus.
  • noun (Law) Matter in pleading which is not necessary or relevant to the case, and which may be rejected.
  • noun (Accounts), obsolete A greater disbursement than the charge of the accountant amounts to.

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

  • noun A surplus; a superabundance.
  • noun law Matter in pleading which is not necessary or relevant to the case, and may be rejected.
  • noun finance A greater disbursement than the charge of the accountant amounts to.

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

  • noun a quantity much larger than is needed

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Medieval Latin surplusagium, from surplus.

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Examples

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  • An excess of sausages.

    August 15, 2008