• (RP) IPA: /ˈɛksələnt/, /ˈɛksɪlənt/

excellent (comparative excellenter, superlative excellentest)

1. Having excelled, having surpassed.
2. Of higher or the highest quality; splendid.
   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546 ↗; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], OCLC 2666860 ↗, page 0016 ↗:

     A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.

3. Exceptionally good of its kind.

   Bill and Ted had an excellent adventure last week in preparation of their history exam.

4. Superior in kind or degree, irrespective of moral quality.

   • an excellent hypocrite

   • 1616–1618, John Fletcher; Philip Massinger; Nathan Field, “The Queene of Corinth”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: Printed for Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, OCLC 3083972 ↗, Act 2, scene 3:

     Their sorrows are most excellent.

• seeSynonyms en

• poor
• terrible

• excel

• French: excellent
• German: ausgezeichnet, hervorragend, großartig
• Italian: eccellente
• Portuguese: excelente
• Russian: отли́чный
• Spanish: excelente, sobresaliente, prominente, excelso

excellent

1. (obsolete) Excellently.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 54573970 ↗:

     , New York Review Books 2001, p.287:

     Lucian, in his tract de Mercede conductis, hath excellent well deciphered such men's proceedings in his picture of Opulentia […].