exorbitance

American  

[ig-zawr-bi-tuhns] / ɪgˈzɔr bɪ təns /

Sometimes exorbitancy

noun

1. the quality of being exorbitant; excessiveness.

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Etymology

Origin of exorbitance

1400–50; late Middle English exorbitaunce; see exorbitant, -ance

Explanation

Exorbitance is excessiveness, a situation when there's an unreasonable amount of something, or when a person acts outrageously. A salesman's exorbitance might make you wonder if he's exaggerating about the great deal he's offering. One kind of exorbitance is excessive spending, like when your grandmother spoils you by showering you with expensive gifts. The exorbitance of a writer or artist shows itself as eccentricity and often brilliant, odd work. Exorbitance comes from the adjective exorbitant, "unreasonably high," which was originally a legal term meaning "deviating from rule or principle." At its root is the Late Latin word exorbitare, "deviate" or "go off the track."

Example Sentences

The exorbitance of Park Place, the alien sound of Kamchatka and Irkutsk — these were backward-feeling games that urged ravenous competition.

From Washington Post • Apr. 7, 2023

“Do you need to have all this excess and exorbitance spent on making a bathroom experience fun and exciting?”

From Seattle Times • Dec. 31, 2022

And sadness, like exorbitance, depends entirely upon what it’s being compared to.

From The New Yorker • Sep. 11, 2019

What's interesting about all this is not that people at the bottom of the market get fleeced, but rather that those same tactics – complexity and exorbitance – are deployed by the mainstream as well.

From The Guardian • Oct. 12, 2012

Even if he had his uncle's genius and his uncle's indefatigability, he would sink, as his uncle did, under the exorbitance of his attempts.

From Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Volume 2 by Tocqueville, Alexis de