excursive en · ADJ
Meanings
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Tending to digress.
Or evening, in her starry mantle bright, Precedes the slow majestic train of night; In that still hour the mind excursive roves, A heavenly voice the listening spirit moves.
1815, Lydia Sigourney, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, Contemplation, page 3:Now all his ponderings, however excursive, wheeled round Isabel as their center; and back to her they came again from every excursion; and again derived some new, small germs for wonderment.
1852, Herman Melville, Pierre; or The Ambiguities:By such means he flattered himself that in time he should subvert her fine understanding, and, by the contamination of her hitherto unsullied mind, reduce her to a level with himself,—and this he meditated to effect by slow and gradual operations, through the medium of her imagination, which he had discovered to be warm and excursive;[…]
1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter V, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 61:
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Tending to go out.
Then into the quiet room came Susan Nipper and the candles; shortly afterwards, the tea, the Captain, and the excursive Mr Toots, who, as above mentioned, was frequently on the move afterwards, and passed but a restless evening.
1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| most excursive | Degree=Sup | lexicographic | |
| more excursive | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic |
Deriveds
excursively · excursiveness · unexcursive
Relateds
Translations (1)
bg отклоняващ се (Tending to digress)