Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of the highest or finest quality; exceptionally good for its kind.
- adjective Archaic Being so to an extreme degree.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Excellently; exceedingly.
- Excelling; possessing excellence; eminent or distinguished for superior merit of any kind; of surpassing character or quality; uncommonly laudable or valuable for any reason; characterized by good or sensible qualities; remarkably good: as, an excellent magistrate; an excellent farm, horse, or fruit; an excellent workman.
- Surpassing; transcendent; consummate; complete: in an ill sense.
- Synonyms Worthy, fine, admirable, choice, prime, valuable, select, exquisite.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Excelling; surpassing others in some good quality or the sum of qualities; of great worth; eminent, in a good sense; superior
- adjective Obs. or Ironical Superior in kind or degree, irrespective of moral quality; -- used with words of a bad significance.
- adverb obsolete Excellently; eminently; exceedingly.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Of the highest
quality ;splendid . - adjective Exceptionally good of its
kind . - adverb obsolete
Excellently .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective very good;of the highest quality
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Until that day, Panshin had always treated Lavretsky, not exactly haughtily, but at least condescendingly; but Lisa, in describing her expedition of the previous day to Panshin, had spoken of Lavretsky as an excellent and clever man, that was enough; he felt bound to make a conquest of an excellent man.
Chapter XXVIII 1917
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What I've noticed is in the last year I hardly spotted any malware, my AV (I had the excellent Nod32 and now the excellent+ Avira) used to find more than 60\% of all flash drives infected, lately this percentage dropped to less than 10\%.
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II. i.177 (405,8) well kiss'd! an excellent courtesy!] [-- _well kissed_, and _excellent courtesy_; --] This I think should be printed, _well kiss'd_! an _excellent courtesy_!
Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746
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(I lived there for 12 years and if socialism is what you call excellent, cheap, taxpayer-paid quality health care for all, well, call me a socialist and stop letting me bail you out with my taxes!)
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That's what I call excellent behavior, and that schoolmaster certainly knows how to organize the activities of his class.
Reveries of a Schoolmaster Francis B. Pearson
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By all means let us be what they call excellent friends.
Michael 1903
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David Willetts told the Commons home affairs select committee he had had three meetings with the immigration minister, Damian Green, to discuss differences in the detail of reforms to the student immigration system, which he described as an "excellent British export industry", worth more than £4bn a year.
The Guardian World News Alan Travis 2011
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(One other woman in the program was barred from early release by her sentencing judge.) "Her behavior has been what we call excellent, excellent behavior," Wayne County Jail Chief Jeriel Heard said.
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Former CIA director John McLaughlin told The Associated Press from London Monday that he supported Panetta's nomination because of his management experience, judgment and understanding of Washington, which he called excellent qualities for a CIA director.
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Former CIA director John McLaughlin told The Associated Press from London Monday that he supported Panetta's nomination because of his management experience, judgment and understanding of Washington, which he called excellent qualities for a CIA director.
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