superfluity

American  

[soo-per-floo-i-tee] / ˌsu pərˈflu ɪ ti /

noun

plural

superfluities

1. the state of being superfluous.

2. a superabundant or excessive amount.

3. something superfluous, as a luxury.

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superfluity British  

/ ˌsuːpəˈfluːɪtɪ /

noun

1. the condition of being superfluous

2. a quantity or thing that is in excess of what is needed

3. a thing that is not needed

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Etymology

Origin of superfluity

1350–1400; Middle English superfluite < Old French < Latin superfluitās. See superfluous, -ity

Example Sentences

Thankfully, YA novelist Robin Wasserman’s 2016 adult debut, “Girls on Fire,” boasts a superfluity of violently intense female friendship to tide us over until Season 3.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 19, 2023

But, a little paradoxically, the collection is most valuable when it’s proving its own superfluity: The best material is what made it onto the completed record.

From New York Times • Oct. 3, 2022

With “Meal Ticket,” the Coens drive to ironic extremes a notion that John Ford placed at the center of several movies: the impotence and superfluity of cultural refinement in the raw and rugged West.

From The New Yorker • Nov. 14, 2018

It is the rare as-told-to book, or one created in collaboration with an author-for-hire, that is well-written, but “A Piece of Light” is filled with a superfluity of penny-dreadful prose.

From Washington Post • Jul. 19, 2018

Is it not a fact that throughout nature a superfluity of any kind of energy or product may be a source of happiness, rather than of distress?

From The Book of Life by Sinclair, Upton