exceptional

Pluralexceptionals

1. 1
   adjective

   Notably better than average; outstanding because it is uncommon or rare.

   Her exceptional talent set her apart from every other candidate.

   The hotel earned its reputation through exceptional service and attention to detail.

   Similaroutstanding, remarkable, extraordinary, excellent, superb

   Oppositeaverage, mediocre, ordinary, unremarkable

2. 2
   adjective

   Standing apart from the ordinary course of things; uncommon or rare.

   The judge treated the matter as exceptional and set aside the normal procedure.

   Frost this late in spring is exceptional for the valley.

   Similarunusual, uncommon, rare, extraordinary, atypical

   Oppositeordinary, usual, common, normal

   Note

   Built plainly from exception plus the adjective ending -al, so its first job is to mark what breaks a rule or pattern, such as a late frost or a case handled outside normal procedure. By itself it carries no praise. In "What an exceptional meal!" the compliment comes from context, and that is where it shades into the "outstanding" meaning. When only rarity is meant, the sentence should make clear that no compliment is intended.

3. 3
   adjective

   Needing special schooling because of intellectual giftedness or a physical or mental disability.

   Federal law guarantees support services for exceptional learners across the district.

   Teachers receive training to support exceptional students within mainstream classrooms.

   Note

   Education's term for students at either end of the range: the gifted and those with a physical or mental disability alike, whenever their needs call for individualized instruction or services. It describes a student and typically stands before learner or student. Outside a school setting, "an exceptional student" will usually be heard as praise, as in the "outstanding" meaning, so writing for a general audience may need to spell out which sense is meant.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   Something that stands apart as an exception, or that has an unusually high value.

   In a market full of averages, this stock was the exceptional that beat every forecast.

   The auditors carefully separated the routine entries from the exceptionals.

   Similaroutlier, anomaly

   Note

   The adjective turned into a countable noun, with the plural exceptionals. In the journal Pediatrics in 1909 it names people who diverge from the norms of mental and physical status, which ties it closely to the special-schooling sense. Applied to people, the noun has a clinical, labeling ring. In ordinary prose, exceptions or exceptional cases is usually the safer choice.

5. 5
   adjective

   In geometry, describing an object that corresponds to something of lower dimension under a birational correspondence.

   The blow-up replaces the point with an exceptional divisor of lower dimension.

   Each exceptional curve contracts to a point under the birational map.

   Note

   A term from birational geometry, where it names whatever a birational map collapses into fewer dimensions. Blowing up a point replaces it with an exceptional divisor, and contracting an exceptional curve sends it back to a point. It almost always sits before the noun naming the object, as in exceptional curve or exceptional divisor. It says nothing about rarity or quality: the object is defined by how it behaves under the map.

Showing meanings only. Show all 5