EXCELLENCY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Excellency mean? 

• EXCELLENCY (noun)
  The noun EXCELLENCY has 2 senses:

1. a title used to address dignitaries (such as ambassadors or governors); usually preceded by 'Your' or 'His' or 'Her'

2. an outstanding feature; something in which something or someone excels

  Familiarity information: EXCELLENCY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EXCELLENCY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A title used to address dignitaries (such as ambassadors or governors); usually preceded by 'Your' or 'His' or 'Her'

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Context example:

Your Excellency

Hypernyms ("Excellency" is a kind of...):

important person; influential person; personage (a person whose actions and opinions strongly influence the course of events)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An outstanding feature; something in which something or someone excels

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

excellence; excellency

Context example:

the use of herbs is one of the excellencies of French cuisine

Hypernyms ("excellency" is a kind of...):

characteristic; feature (a prominent attribute or aspect of something)

Derivation:

excellent (very good; of the highest quality)

 Context examples 

The dinner too in its turn was highly admired; and he begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellency of its cooking was owing.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

She thought she was merely interested in him as an unusual type possessing various potential excellencies, and she even felt philanthropic about it.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I answered, “that his excellency’s prudence, quality, and fortune, had exempted him from those defects, which folly and beggary had produced in others.”

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

She was assured of his affection; and that heart in return was solicited, which, perhaps, they pretty equally knew was already entirely his own; for, though Henry was now sincerely attached to her, though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies of her character and truly loved her society, I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

In every meeting of the kind Willoughby was included; and the ease and familiarity which naturally attended these parties were exactly calculated to give increasing intimacy to his acquaintance with the Dashwoods, to afford him opportunity of witnessing the excellencies of Marianne, of marking his animated admiration of her, and of receiving, in her behaviour to himself, the most pointed assurance of her affection.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I told his excellency “that I was entirely at his disposal;” and accordingly we set out next morning.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

His excellency observed my countenance to clear up; he told me, with a sigh, that there his estate began, and would continue the same, till we should come to his house: that his countrymen ridiculed and despised him, for managing his affairs no better, and for setting so ill an example to the kingdom; which, however, was followed by very few, such as were old, and wilful, and weak like himself.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

One great excellency in this tribe, is their skill at prognostics, wherein they seldom fail; their predictions in real diseases, when they rise to any degree of malignity, generally portending death, which is always in their power, when recovery is not: and therefore, upon any unexpected signs of amendment, after they have pronounced their sentence, rather than be accused as false prophets, they know how to approve their sagacity to the world, by a seasonable dose.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I gave due praises to every thing I saw, whereof his excellency took not the least notice till after supper; when, there being no third companion, he told me with a very melancholy air that he doubted he must throw down his houses in town and country, to rebuild them after the present mode; destroy all his plantations, and cast others into such a form as modern usage required, and give the same directions to all his tenants, unless he would submit to incur the censure of pride, singularity, affectation, ignorance, caprice, and perhaps increase his majesty’s displeasure; that the admiration I appeared to be under would cease or diminish, when he had informed me of some particulars which, probably, I never heard of at court, the people there being too much taken up in their own speculations, to have regard to what passed here below.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

When I had for some time entertained their excellencies, to their infinite satisfaction and surprise, I desired they would do me the honour to present my most humble respects to the emperor their master, the renown of whose virtues had so justly filled the whole world with admiration, and whose royal person I resolved to attend, before I returned to my own country.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)