excrescence
English
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Etymology
From Middle English, early 15th century, in sense “(action of) growing out (of something else)”. Borrowed from Latin excrescentia (“abnormal growths”), from excrescentem, from excrēscere, from ex- (“out”) (English ex-) + crēscere (“to grow”) (English crescent). Sense of “abnormal growth” from 1570s, from earlier excrescency (1540s in this sense).[1]
Pronunciation
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Noun
excrescence (plural excrescences)
- Something, usually abnormal, which grows out of something else.
- 1847, Charlotte Brontë, chapter 7, in Jane Eyre[1]:
- I have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged closely, modestly, plainly. Miss Temple, that girl’s hair must be cut off entirely; I will send a barber to-morrow: and I see others who have far too much of the excrescence—that tall girl, tell her to turn round.
- 1903, Jack London, chapter 7, in The Call of the Wild[2]:
- The squirrels were in hiding. One only he saw,—a sleek gray fellow, flattened against a gray dead limb so that he seemed a part of it, a woody excrescence upon the wood itself.
- 1933, George Orwell, chapter 31, in Down and Out in Paris and London[3]:
- It is taken for granted that a beggar does not 'earn' his living, as a bricklayer or a literary critic 'earns' his. He is a mere social excrescence, tolerated because we live in a humane age, but essentially despicable.
- A disfiguring or unwanted mark or adjunct.
- (phonetics) The epenthesis of a consonant, e.g., warmth as [ˈwɔrmpθ] (adding a [p] between [m] and [θ]), or -t (Etymology 2).
- Synonym: vyanjanabhakti
- Antonym: svarabhakti
- Antonym: anaptyxis
- Hypernym: epenthesis
Hyponyms
- (phonetic): linking consonant
Related terms
Translations
something, usually abnormal, which grows out of something else
|
epenthesis of a consonant
See also
- (phonetic): intervocalic
References
- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “excrescence”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms borrowed from Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- en:Phonetics
- English words suffixed with -escence