excursive
adj1
Tending to digress.
- Or evening, in her starry mantle bright, Precedes the slow majestic train of night; In that still hour the mind excursive roves, A heavenly voice the listening spirit moves.1815, Lydia Sigourney, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, Contemplation, page 3:
- 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.1852, Herman Melville, Pierre; or The Ambiguities:
1 more example
- By such means he flattered himself that in time he should subvert her fine understanding, and, by the contamination of her hitherto unsullied mind, reduce her to a level with himself,—and this he meditated to effect by slow and gradual operations, through the medium of her imagination, which he had discovered to be warm and excursive;[…]1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter V, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 61:
2
Tending to go out.
- Then into the quiet room came Susan Nipper and the candles; shortly afterwards, the tea, the Captain, and the excursive Mr Toots, who, as above mentioned, was frequently on the move afterwards, and passed but a restless evening.1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:
- Derived terms
- excursively, excursiveness, unexcursive
- Related terms
- excursion