superfluous

English

WOTD – 5 June 2007

From Middle English superfluous, from Latin superfluus (“superfluous”), from superfluō (“overflow”), from super (“above, more than, over”) + fluō (“flow”). Compare mellifluous and fluid, also from Latin. Literally corresponds to overflow, which is from Germanic, rather than Latin.

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /suːˈpɜːflu.əs/, /sjʊˈpɜːflu.əs/
- Audio (UK): (file)
(General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /suˈpɝflu.əs/
- Audio (California): (file)
(General Australian) IPA^(key): /səˈpɜːflu.əs/
- Audio (Queensland): (file)

superfluous (comparative more superfluous, superlative most superfluous)

In excess of what is required or sufficient.
With a full rain suit, carrying an umbrella may be superfluous.
- 1867, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, chapter IV, in The Gambler, translated by C. J. Hogarth‎^[1]:
  Then I began to play in timid fashion, venturing only twenty or thirty gulden at a time. Meanwhile, I observed and took notes. It seemed to me that calculation was superfluous, and by no means possessed of the importance which certain other players attached to it, even though they sat with ruled papers in their hands, whereon they set down the coups, calculated the chances, reckoned, staked, and—lost exactly as we more simple mortals did who played without any reckoning at all.

excess of what is sufficient