EXCRESCENCE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does excrescence mean? 

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

1. something that bulges out or is protuberant or projects from its surroundings

2. (pathology) an abnormal outgrowth or enlargement of some part of the body

  Familiarity information: EXCRESCENCE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EXCRESCENCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Something that bulges out or is protuberant or projects from its surroundings

Classified under:

Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes

Synonyms:

bulge; bump; excrescence; extrusion; gibbosity; gibbousness; hump; jut; prominence; protrusion; protuberance; swelling

Context example:

the bony excrescence between its horns

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

projection (any solid convex shape that juts out from something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "excrescence"):

frontal eminence (either prominence of the frontal bone above each orbit)

occipital protuberance (prominence on the outer surface of the occipital bone)

belly (a part that bulges deeply)

caput (a headlike protuberance on an organ or structure)

mogul (a bump on a ski slope)

nub; nubble (a small lump or protuberance)

snag (a sharp protuberance)

wart (any small rounded protuberance (as on certain plants or animals))

Derivation:

excrescent (forming an outgrowth (usually an excessive outgrowth))

Sense 2

Meaning:

(pathology) an abnormal outgrowth or enlargement of some part of the body

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

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

appendage; outgrowth; process (a natural prolongation or projection from a part of an organism either animal or plant)

growth ((pathology) an abnormal proliferation of tissue (as in a tumor))

Domain category:

pathology (the branch of medical science that studies the causes and nature and effects of diseases)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "excrescence"):

vegetation (an abnormal growth or excrescence (especially a warty excrescence on the valves of the heart))

Derivation:

excrescent (forming an outgrowth (usually an excessive outgrowth))

 Context examples 

One only he saw,—a sleek gray fellow, flattened against a gray dead limb so that he seemed a part of it, a woody excrescence upon the wood itself.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

An autosomal dominant, bilateral, slowly progressive degeneration of corneal endothelial cells with thickening of Descemet's membrane and accumulation of excrescences.

(Fuchs Endothelial Dystrophy, NCI Thesaurus)

Miss Temple, that girl's hair must be cut off entirely; I will send a barber to-morrow: and I see others who have far too much of the excrescence—that tall girl, tell her to turn round.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)