excrescence

Definitions

  • WordNet 3.6
    • n excrescence (pathology) an abnormal outgrowth or enlargement of some part of the body
    • n excrescence something that bulges out or is protuberant or projects from its surroundings "the gun in his pocket made an obvious bulge","the hump of a camel","he stood on the rocky prominence","the occipital protuberance was well developed","the bony excrescence between its horns"
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    • n Excrescence An excrescent appendage, as, a wart or tumor; anything growing out unnaturally from anything else; a preternatural or morbid development; hence, a troublesome superfluity; an incumbrance; as, an excrescence on the body, or on a plant. "Excrescences of joy.""The excrescences of the Spanish monarchy."
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
    • n excrescence An abnormal superficial growth or appendage, as a wart or tubercle; anything which grows unnaturally, and without organic use, out of something else, as nutgalls; hence, a superfluity; a disfiguring addition.
    • n excrescence Figuratively, an extravagant or excessive outbreak: as, “excrescences of joy,”
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Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
    • n Excrescence eks-kres′ens that which grows out unnaturally from anything else: an outbreak: a wart or tumour: a superfluous part
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Quotations

  • Edward M. Forster
    Edward%20M.%20Forster
    “Towns are excrescences, gray fluxions, where men, hurrying to find one another, have lost themselves.”

Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
F. excrescence, excroissanse, L. excrescentia, excrescences, neut. pl. of p. pr. of excrescere,. See Excrescent
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
Fr.,—L.,—excrescĕre—ex, out, crescĕre, to grow.

Usage

In literature:

In the young, the excrescence is naked.
"The Hunters' Feast" by Mayne Reid
Dalton and such men were no longer necessary to bear from the shores of England the excrescences of royalty.
"The Buccaneer" by Mrs. S. C. Hall
The aristocracy, then, was regarded as a sort of cancer, or excrescence of society.
"The Essays of "George Eliot" Complete" by George Eliot
The under edge has two notches cut in it, separated by a curved excrescence.
"How it Works" by Archibald Williams
It was first noticed in 1878, and was supposed to be some great mountain or excrescence peeping up through the clouds.
"The Children's Book of Stars" by G.E. Mitton
GALL-LIKE excrescences not inherited, ii.
"The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2)" by Charles Darwin
It is an excrescence, not an essential garment like the shirt and breeches.
"Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2)" by William Delisle Hay
Tubercle, a small wart-like excrescence.
"The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise" by M. E. Hard
Prostitution itself has become adapted to all the pathological excrescences of vice.
"The Sexual Question" by August Forel
If one of them be perfect by itself, the other will be an excrescence.
"Modern Painters Volume II (of V)" by John Ruskin
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In science:

By ringing changes on these excrescences we might get alternative theories, logically incompatible, yet always empirically equivalent.
Empirical Equivalence, Artificial Gauge Freedom and a Generalized Kretschmann Objection
When gauge freedom has been installed artificially, as in the Stueckelberg, BFT and parametrization cases, one can eliminate the extra fields, the “otiose elements” or “excrescences,” by gauge-fixing.
Empirical Equivalence, Artificial Gauge Freedom and a Generalized Kretschmann Objection
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