excellence
Americannoun
-
the fact or state of excelling; superiority; eminence.
his excellence in mathematics.
- Synonyms:
- distinction, transcendence, preeminence
-
an excellent quality or feature.
Use of herbs is one of the excellences of French cuisine.
- Antonyms:
- inferiority
-
(usually initial capital letter) excellency.
noun
-
the state or quality of excelling or being exceptionally good; extreme merit; superiority
-
an action, characteristic, feature, etc, in which a person excels
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of excellence
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin excellentia; equivalent to excel + -ence
Explanation
Excellence means greatness — the very best. Achieving excellence is never easy to do. Excellence is a quality that people really appreciate, because it's so hard to find. Excellence is the quality of excelling, of being truly the best at something. Getting an A+ shows excellence. Michael Jordan's basketball career was filled with excellence. We love Picasso and Shakespeare for their excellence. When you see excellence, you should appreciate the work that went into it. So much in the world falls short of excellence.
Vocabulary lists containing excellence
Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ance, -ence
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"CLEP Principles of Management," Vocabulary from Chapter 10
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"The MGMT Solution," Vocabulary from Chapter 16
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In some ways, the R2’s general excellence is just good timing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
"To the world, our father was the iconic music legend whose vision, instincts, and relentless pursuit of excellence shaped the soundtrack of countless lives," they said in a statement.
From BBC ● Jun. 22, 2026
Burrows won 11 Emmy awards for excellence in television and helmed more than 1,000 episodes of hit programs, working as a director, producer and writer.
From Barron's ● Jun. 19, 2026
That brings us back to Yamamoto, whose combination of consistency and excellence makes him the natural choice to start a big game — opening day, for instance, or an elimination game in the World Series.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2026
The opening words of Antony’s funeral oration in Julius Caesar are, covertly, an ethos appeal par excellence: a positioning of the speaker with relation to the crowd.
From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith
It is a film of excellences, never more so than in the performances by Robert De Niro and a remarkable supporting cast.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 25, 2023
The days after VE Day were perfect for a tragic English opera with an English setting, and its musical excellences were supplemented by a sense of its national significance.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 7, 2013
For all its excellences, it would have been a bigger book if Rabbit had been a bigger man.
From Time Magazine Archive
Yet he also fears, and will presumably fight, any government move which, "on a doctrinaire point of social policy, uproots the individual excellences of these schools."
From Time Magazine Archive
Their excellences are as different, and indeed as opposite, as they can well be.
From Winterslow Essays and Characters Written There by Hazlitt, William
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
