Adjacent Words

Excessive definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

EXCESS'IVE, a. Beyond any given degree, measure or limit, or beyond the common measure or proportion; as the excessive bulk of a man; excessive labor; excessive wages.
1. Beyond the established laws of morality and religion, or beyond the bounds of justice, fitness, propriety, expedience or utility; as excessive indulgence of any kind.
Excessive bail shall not be required.
2. Extravagant; unreasonable. His expenditures of money were excessive.
3. Vehement; violent; as excessive passion.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: beyond normal limits; "excessive charges"; "a book of inordinate length"; "his dress stops just short of undue elegance"; "unreasonable demands" [syn: excessive, inordinate, undue, unreasonable]
2: unrestrained, especially with regard to feelings; "extravagant praise"; "exuberant compliments"; "overweening ambition"; "overweening greed" [syn: excessive, extravagant, exuberant, overweening]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 14th century exceeding what is usual, proper, necessary, or normal • excessively adverb • excessiveness noun Synonyms: excessive, immoderate, inordinate, extravagant, exorbitant, extreme mean going beyond a normal limit. excessive implies an amount or degree too great to be reasonable or acceptable <excessive punishment>. immoderate implies lack of desirable or necessary restraint <immoderate spending>. inordinate implies an exceeding of the limits dictated by reason or good judgment <inordinate pride>. extravagant implies an indifference to restraints imposed by truth, prudence, or good taste <extravagant claims for the product>. exorbitant implies a departure from accepted standards regarding amount or degree <exorbitant prices>. extreme may imply an approach to the farthest limit possible or conceivable but commonly means only to a notably high degree <extreme shyness>.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 too much or too great. 2 more than what is normal or necessary. Derivatives: excessively adv. excessiveness n.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Excessive Ex*cess"ive, a. [Cf. F. excessif.] Characterized by, or exhibiting, excess; overmuch. Excessive grief [is] the enemy to the living. --Shak. Syn: Undue; exorbitant; extreme; overmuch; enormous; immoderate; monstrous; intemperate; unreasonable. See Enormous --Ex*cess*ive*ly, adv. -Ex*cess"ive*ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you describe the amount or level of something as excessive, you disapprove of it because it is more or higher than is necessary or reasonable. ...the alleged use of excessive force by police... The government says that local authority spending is excessive. ADJ [disapproval] • excessively Managers are also accused of paying themselves excessively high salaries... Mum had started taking pills and drinking excessively. ADV: ADV adj, ADV with v

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Superabundant, disproportionate, undue, too great, superfluous, exuberant. 2. Extravagant, inordinate, enormous, outrageous, unreasonable, very great. 3. Immoderate, intemperate, extreme. 4. Vehement, violent.

Moby Thesaurus

a bit much, abandoned, acute, aggrandized, amplified, ballyhooed, bibulous, boundless, cloying, crapulent, crapulous, cutthroat, cutting, disgusting, disproportionate, dissipated, dizzy, drastic, egregious, enormous, exacting, exaggerated, excess, exorbitant, extortionate, extravagant, extreme, fabulous, fancy, fierce, fulsome, furious, gigantic, gluttonous, gouging, grandiloquent, great, grossly overpriced, high, high-flown, hyperbolic, hypertrophied, immoderate, improper, inappropriate, incontinent, indulgent, inflated, inflationary, inordinate, intemperate, intense, keen, limitless, magnified, monstrous, nauseating, out of bounds, out of sight, outrageous, over, overbig, overboard, overdeveloped, overdone, overdrawn, overemphasized, overemphatic, overestimated, overgreat, overgrown, overindulgent, overindulging, overlarge, overmuch, overpraised, overpriced, oversold, overstated, overstressed, overweening, overwrought, piercing, preposterous, prodigal, profuse, prohibitive, puffed, rigorous, rough, self-indulgent, severe, sharp, sky-high, skyrocketing, spiraling, splitting, steep, stiff, stretched, super, superfluous, superlative, supernatural, swinish, too much, tough, touted, towering, unbounded, unbridled, unconscionable, unconstrained, uncontrolled, undisciplined, undue, unfrugal, unjustifiable, unlimited, unmeasurable, unmeasured, unreasonable, unrestrained, untempered, unthrifty, unwarranted, usurious, vehement, venomous, violent, virulent