English

Noun

excrescence ‎(plural excrescences)

1. something, usually abnormal, which grows out of something else
   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter 7,

     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, The Call of the Wild, Chapter 7,

     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, Down and Out in Paris and London, Chapter 31,

     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.

2. a disfiguring or unwanted mark or adjunct
3. (phonetics) epenthesis of a consonant, e.g., warmth as [ˈwɔrmpθ] (adding a [p] between [m] and [θ]), or -t (Etymology 2).

Antonyms

• (phonetic): anaptyxis

Related terms

• excrescency
• excrescent

Hypernyms

• (phonetic): epenthesis

Hyponyms

• (phonetic): linking consonant

Translations

See also

• (phonetic): intervocalic

References

1. ↑ “excrescence” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (2001).