different between extravagance vs excrescency

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French extravagance, from Medieval Latin extra + vagor (“to wander”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?st?æv???ns/
• Hyphenation: ex?trav?a?gance

Noun

extravagance (countable and uncountable, plural extravagances)

1. Excessive or superfluous expenditure of money.
2. Prodigality, as of anger, love, expression, imagination, or demands.
   • 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. In fact, that arm-chair had been an extravagance of Mrs. Bunting. She had wanted her husband to be comfortable after the day's work was done, and she had paid thirty-seven shillings for the chair.

Synonyms

Antonyms

• frugality
• economize
• moderation

Related terms

Translations

French

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -??s

Noun

extravagance f (plural extravagances)

1. extravagance
   • 1837 Louis Viardot, L’Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manche^{fr.Wikisource}, translation of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Chapter I:

     Sa curiosité et son extravagance arrivèrent à ce point qu’il vendit plusieurs arpents de bonnes terres à labourer pour acheter des livres de chevalerie à lire.

     His curiosity and his extravagance came to the point that he sold several arpents of good working land to buy books of chivalry to read.

Related terms

• extravagant
  • extravagamment

Further reading

• “extravagance” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Etymology

From excrescence +? -ency.

Noun

excrescency (plural excrescencies)

1. An excrescent state or condition; the quality or fact of growing out of something; abnormal or excessive development
2. (obsolete) An exuberant outburst; an extravagance.
3. (obsolete) An excrescence, and excrescent growth; an outgrowth.
   • 1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia, XVIII:

     And having enquir'd into the History of Cork, I find it reckoned as an excrescency of the bark of a certain Tree […].

4. (obsolete) An abnormal, morbid, or unsightly outgrowth.

Related terms

• excrescence
• excrescent

References

• John A. Simpson and Edward S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) , “excrescency”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ?ISBN