surplusage
nounEtymology From Medieval Latin surplusagium, from surplus.
1
Archaic A surplus; a superabundance.
- If then thee list my offred grace to vse, / Take what thou please of all this surplusage; / If thee list not, leaue haue thou to refuse […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a reduction from another part of the same creature.1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Compensation:
2
Law Matter in pleading which is not necessary or relevant to the case, and may be rejected.
- 1802–1819, Abraham Rees, The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature one third-part of the surplusage of the estate of any person dying intetate, hall be distributed to his widow,and the reidue amongt his children by equal portions