superfluity
Americannoun
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the state of being superfluous.
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a superabundant or excessive amount.
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something superfluous, as a luxury.
noun
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the condition of being superfluous
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a quantity or thing that is in excess of what is needed
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a thing that is not needed
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of superfluity
1350–1400; Middle English superfluite < Old French < Latin superfluitās. See superfluous, -ity
Explanation
A superfluity is an excess or abundance. When you encounter superfluity, there's too much of something. When something is superfluous, it's unnecessary or redundant: there's already enough of it. Likewise, superfluity is too much of something. If your friend is a shopoholic and spends all of her time at the mall, you probably encounter superfluity in her closet — since she has more clothes than she will ever wear. The Latin root word is superfluus, which is used figuratively to mean "unnecessary," but is literally "overflowing."
Vocabulary lists containing superfluity
Walden
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Jane Eyre
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The Merchant of Venice
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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.
How refreshingly meta, then, that “The Devil Wears Prada 2” — a film that seemingly had no discernible reason to exist other than to make money — directly addresses its own superfluity.
From Salon • May 1, 2026
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
Under low light, these faded, wispy clippings from the cutting-room floor suggest a superfluity of ideas that might have supplied a lifetime of inspiration to other artists.
From Washington Post • Oct. 18, 2019
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
I exclaim, like Cæsar, when he, too, was afflicted with superfluity of water, "Help me, Cassius, or I sink!"
From Doesticks, What He Says by Doesticks, Q. K. Philander
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.
