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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

in excelsis en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • /ˌɪn ɛksˈt͡ʃɛlsɪs/ (UK)
  • /ˌɪn ɪkˈsɛlsɪs/ (UK)

Etymology

Borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin in excelsīs (“on high, in the highest”), as in the Gloria.

Meanings

  1. (not-comparable, postpositional) To the highest degree; archetypal, quintessential.
    • It can only be AC/DC: black black black! with the first single from their first new album in eight years, Black Ice. It's blues-metal heaviosity in exelcis^([sic]). 2008 September 14, Craig McLean, “Rock review: AC/DC, Rock 'n' Roll Train”, in The Observer:
    • Then it’s early R.E.M. in excelsis: seething momentum, cascading guitar arpeggios, power-pop punch in the arrangements, and words that have the intermittent uncanny lucidity of sleep talk (“These rivers of suggestion are driving me away”). 2018 October 25, James Parker, “R.E.M., in Retrospect”, in The Atlantic:
    • […] it was impossible to believe that one mind directed the singer and another the pianist, and if the voice was an example of art in excelsis, not less exalted was the perfection of the player. 1916, E. F. Benson, Michael: