From Middle English excellent, from Old French excellent, from Latin excellēns, present participle of excellō, equivalent to .

• (RP) IPA: /ˈɛksələnt/, /ˈɛksɪlənt/
• (in rapid speech) IPA: /ˈɛkslənt/
• (America) IPA: /ˈɛksələnt/

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 ↗; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC ↗, 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.
   • 1754–1762, David Hume, The History of England

     Elizabeth, therefore, who was an excellent hypocrite

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

     Their sorrows are most excellent.

• See Thesaurus:excellent

• poor
• terrible

• excel

• French: excellent
• German: ausgezeichnet, hervorragend, großartig
• Italian: eccellente, eccezionale
• 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: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC ↗:
     , 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 […].