exuberance
Pluralexuberances (some meanings)
- 1Cheerful or vigorous enthusiasm and liveliness; the quality of being full of energy and high spirits.
The young team played with such exuberance that the crowd stayed on its feet all night.
After forty years of teaching, his exuberance in the classroom has never faded.
Similarenthusiasm, energy, cheerfulness, ebullience, gusto
Oppositeapathy, lethargy, listlessness
Note
The word began in the farmyard. Latin exuberare, "to grow thickly, to abound", joins ex-, "out", to uber, "udder", and probably first pictured a cow or goat so full of milk that it overflowed. High spirits are that same plenty spilling over. Ebullience is a close synonym, and as a quality the word usually goes without an article: a side plays with energy and exuberance.
- 2
- 3An overflowing quantity of something, more than is needed; superfluousness.
The gardener pruned away the exuberance of shoots that had sprung up along the old vine.
The novel suffers from an exuberance of detail that slows the story to a crawl.
Similarprofusion, excess, abundance, superfluity
Oppositedearth, scarcity, lack
Note
Here the overflow is of things rather than spirits, and it usually comes as an exuberance of something: of branches on a plant, of detail in a novel. The spilling-over image behind the high-spirits meaning is closest to the surface here, now with a hint of excess: more than is wanted, which is why a gardener prunes it and a critic complains of it.
- 4A great abundance of wealth or riches.
Practice
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Origin
From French exubérance, from Latin exuberantia ("superabundance"), from exuberare ("to grow thickly, to abound"), from ex- ("out") + uber ("udder"); it would first have described a cow or she-goat making so much milk that it dripped or sprayed from the udder.