Excesses

How to spell excesses

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce excesses

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does excesses mean?

1. nounRepeated instances of overindulgence or behaviour that goes beyond reasonable or acceptable limits.

Excesses in a sentence

• Years of dietary excesses finally caught up with his health.

• The report condemned the financial excesses of the board.

Where does excesses come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin excessus, a noun meaning 'a going out' or 'a departure', which came from the verb excedere, formed from ex- meaning 'out' and cedere meaning 'to go' or 'to yield'. In late Latin the sense shifted from simply going out to going beyond a proper limit, which gave us the idea of an extreme or an overstepping. English took the word in through Old French exces during the 1300s, and the plural 'excesses' came to describe repeated bouts of overindulgence or behaviour that exceeds reasonable bounds. The same cedere root, 'to go', hides inside many relatives such as 'proceed', 'recede', and 'concede'. Remembering that double s sits between the single c (from cess) is the spelling trap here: one c, then two s sounds spelled with a single s plus the plural -ses.

How the word is built

• ex- (out, beyond)
• cess (from Latin cedere: to go)
• -es (plural ending)