different between excrescence vs weal

English

Etymology

From Middle English, early 15th century, in sense “(action of) growing out (of something else)”. Borrowed from Latin excrescentia (“abnormal growths”), from excrescentem, from excr?scere, from ex- (“out”) (English ex-) + cr?scere (“to grow”) (English crescent). Sense of “abnormal growth” from 1570s, from earlier excrescency (1540s in this sense).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?sk??s?ns/, /?k?sk??s?ns/

Noun

excrescence (plural excrescences)

1. Something, usually abnormal, which grows out of something else.
   • 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part III, XXXIII [Uniform ed., p. 299]:

     Perhaps he meant that towns are after all excrescences, grey fluxions, where men, hurrying to find one another, have lost themselves.
2. A disfiguring or unwanted mark or adjunct.
3. (phonetics) The epenthesis of a consonant, e.g., warmth as [?w?rmp?] (adding a [p] between [m] and [?]), or -t (Etymology 2).

   Synonym: vyanjanabhakti

   Antonyms: svarabhakti, anaptyxis

   Hypernym: epenthesis

Hyponyms

• (phonetic): linking consonant

Related terms

• excrescency
• excrescent

Translations

See also

• (phonetic): intervocalic

References

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?l, IPA^(key): /wi?l/
• Rhymes: -i?l
• Homophone: we'll; wheal, wheel (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

Etymology 1

From Middle English wele, from Old English wela (“wellness, welfare, prosperity, riches, well-being, wealth”), from Proto-Germanic *walô (“well-being, wellness, weal”). Cognate with German Wohl, Danish vel, Swedish väl.

Noun

weal (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Wealth, riches. [10th-19th c.]
2. (literary) Welfare, prosperity. [from 10th c.]
3. (by extension) Boon, benefit.
   • 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 557:

     And indeed I blamed myself and sore repented me of having taken compassion on him and continued in this condition, suffering fatigue not to be described, till I said to myself, "I wrought him a weal and he requited me with my ill; by Allah, never more will I do any man a service so long as I live!"

4. Specifically, the general happiness of a community, country etc. (often with qualifying word). [from 15th c.]
   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, page 372:

     Louis could aim to restyle himself the first among citizens, viewing virtuous attachment to the public weal as his most important kingly duty.

Derived terms

• commonweal
• wealful
• wealsman
• wealth

Related terms

• in weal or woe

Translations

Etymology 2

See wale.

Noun

weal (plural weals)

1. A raised, longitudinal wound, usually purple, on the surface of flesh caused by a stroke of a rod or whip; a welt.

   Synonym: wheal

   • 1958, T. H. White, The Once and Future King, London: Collins, 1959, Chapter 16,^[1]

     He had been slashed sixteen times by mighty boars, and his legs had white weals of shiny flesh that stretched right up to his ribs.

   • 2007, Tan Twan Eng, The Gift of Rain, New York: Weinstein Books, Book Two, Chapter Twenty-One, p. 422,^[2]

     And I saw the green island in the immense sea, the borders of the sea curling with a lining of light, like a vast piece of rice paper, its edges alive with weals of red embers, ready to burst into flame.

Translations

Verb

weal (third-person singular simple present weals, present participle wealing, simple past and past participle wealed)

1. To mark with stripes; to wale.

Anagrams

• alew, e-law, lawe, wale