excursion

See also: excursión

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin excursiō (“a running out, an inroad, invasion, a setting out, beginning of a speech”), from excurrere (“to run out”), from ex (“out”) + currere (“to run”). By surface analysis, excurse +‎ -ion. Compare excursus.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ɪkˈskɜː.ʃən/
  • (General American, Canada) IPA(key): /ɛkˈskɝ.ʒən/
  • (Australia) IPA(key): /ekˈskɜː.ʃən/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)ʃən, -ɜː(ɹ)ʒən
  • Hyphenation: ex‧cur‧sion

Noun

excursion (plural excursions)

  1. A brief recreational trip; a journey out of the usual way.
    While driving home I took an excursion and saw some deer.
    • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 2, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
      Mother […] considered that the exclusiveness of Peter's circle was due not to its distinction, but to the fact that it was an inner Babylon of prodigality and whoredom, from which every Kensingtonian held aloof, except on the conventional tip-and-run excursions in pursuit of shopping, tea and theatres.
  2. (Australia) A field trip.
  3. A wandering from the main subject: a digression.
    • 1852 July, Herman Melville, “(please specify the book number)”, in Pierre: Or, The Ambiguities, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
      Now all his ponderings, however excursive, wheeled round Isabel as their center; and back to her they came again from every excursion; and again derived some new, small germs for wonderment.
  4. Temporary deviation from a regular course or pattern
    After an unsuccessful excursion into banking, I've returned to public life.
  5. (aviation) An occurrence where an aircraft runs off the end or side of a runway or taxiway, usually during takeoff, landing, or taxi.
  6. (phonetics) A deviation in pitch, for example in the syllables of enthusiastic speech.
  7. (physics) The displacement of a body or a point from a mean position or neutral value, as in an oscillation.
    • 2023 September, Loris Habib, Manuel Melon, “Effect of loudspeaker non-linearities on the performance of personal sound zones”, in Proceedings of the 10th Convention of the European Acoustics Association‎[1]:
      ...the restoring force of the suspensions is directly proportional to the diaphragm excursion.
  8. (nuclear physics) An episode during which the fission rate of a supercritical system increases, peaks, and then decreases to a low value.
    • 1989, Hugh C. Paxton, Glossary of Nuclear Criticality Terms‎[2], Los Alamos, New Mexico: Los Alamos National Laboratory:
      excursion, nuclear: An episode during which the fission rate of a supercritical system increases, peaks, and then decreases to a low value.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

See also

Verb

excursion (third-person singular simple present excursions, present participle excursioning, simple past and past participle excursioned)

  1. (intransitive) To go on a recreational trip or excursion.
    • 1825, Charles Lamb, Letter to Mr. Wordsworth, 6 April, 1825, in The Works of Charles Lamb, Volume I, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851, p. 249, [3]
      Yesterday I excursioned twenty miles; to-day I write a few letters.
    • 1880, Mark Twain, chapter 49, in A Tramp Abroad‎[4]:
      After breakfast, that next morning in Chamonix, we went out in the yard and watched the gangs of excursioning tourists arriving and departing with their mules and guides and porters […]
    • 1942, Emily Carr, “Ways of Getting Round”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC:
      Victoria cows preferred to walk on the plank sidewalks in winter rather than dirty their hooves in the mud by the roadside. They liked to tune their chews to the tap, tap, tap of their feet on the planks. Ladies challenged the right of way by opening and shutting their umbrellas in the cows' faces and shooing, but the cows only chewed harder and stood still. It was the woman-lady, not the lady-cow who had to take to the mud and get scratched by the wild rose bushes that grew between sidewalk and fence while she excursioned round the cow.

Translations

Further reading

French

Etymology

    Learned borrowing from Latin excursiōnem.

    Pronunciation

    • IPA(key): /ɛk.skyʁ.sjɔ̃/
    • Audio:(file)

    Noun

    excursion f (plural excursions)

    1. excursion
    2. wander (talk off topic)

    Further reading

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