excellent

Etymology

From Old French excellent, from Latin excellēns (“elevated, exalted”), present participle of excellō (“elevate, exult”)

Equivalent to excel +‎ -ent.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɛksələnt/, /ˈɛksɪlnt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Adjective

excellent (comparative excellenter or more excellent, superlative excellentest or most excellent)

1. Of the highest quality; splendid.
   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., 55 Fifth Avenue, [1933], OCLC 2666860, page 0016:

     A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.

2. Exceptionally good of its kind.
   • 2013 July-August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist:

     Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus. That’s because the lenses that are excellent at magnifying tiny subjects produce a narrow depth of field. A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that.

3. Superior in kind or degree, irrespective of moral quality.
   • David Hume (1711-1776)

     an excellent hypocrite

   • Beaumont and Fletcher (1603-1625)

     Their sorrows are most excellent.

Adverb

excellent (comparative more excellent, superlative most excellent)

1. (obsolete) Excellently.
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970, (please specify |partition=1, 2, or 3):
     , New York Review Books 2001, p.287:

     Lucian, in his tract de Mercede conductis, hath excellent well deciphered such men's proceedings in his picture of Opulentia […].

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛnt

Adjective

excellent (comparative excellenter, superlative excellentst)

1. excellent, splendid

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin excellens.

Etymology 2

See etymology on the main entry.

Further reading

• “excellent” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Verb

excellent

1. third-person plural future active indicative of excellō