Word.ws English Dictionary

par excellence

Syllables: par ex·cel·lenceUK/ˌpɑːɹ ˌɛksəˈlɑːns//ˌpɑr ˌɛksəˈlɑn(t)s/

par excellence adverb: because or on account of one's excellence.

Adverb

par excellence (not comparable)

  1. Because or on account of one's excellence.
    • The name of Venus is in deede but bautye,
      And men me fayrest call, per excellencye.1584, George Peele, The Araygnement of Paris, ii, i
  2. Most especially, in particular, most notably (out of a thing or person's other attributes, roles, etc.).
    • He was par excellence a theologian.2009, John Murray, “Introduction”, in John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion
  3. In a superior way, in the most representative or fully-developed manner.
    • She was par excellence the vigilant member of the house-hold.1877, William Worthington Fowler, Woman on the American Frontier, page 99

Adjective

par excellence (not comparable)

  1. (postpositional) Being the proper or truest example of a general name.
    • The Santo (which is St. Antonio's church, called il Santo par excellence) […]1695 (published 1845), Earl of Perth, Letters, p. 61
    • At one time they were twenty-four in number; but Holland (1812) and Hughes (1814) found them reduced to ten; at Curzon's visit (1834) there were only seven; and in 1853 not more than four of these were inhabited by more than two or three monks. Meteora par excellence is the largest and perhaps the...1883, "Meteora" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. XVI, p. 114
    Synonyms:
    proper
  2. (postpositional) Being a quintessential example of a general type.
    • This is the age of invention, most certainly—the age, one may say—the age par excellence.1839 August, Edgar Allan Poe, Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, page 68
    • The mathematical reason has long been regarded as the reason par excellence.1845, Edgar Allan Poe, “The Purloined Letter”, in Tales, page 212

par excellence meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Kannada

par excellence in Tamil

ஒப்பிலலாத, ஒப்பிலி

par excellence in Urdu

بہتر ترین

par excellence in Kannada

ಅತ್ಯುತ್ತಮ, ಅತ್ಯುತ್ತಮವಾಗಿ, ಶ್ರೇಷ್ಠತಮವಾಗಿ, ಅತ್ಯುತ್ತಮನಾಗಿ, ಅತ್ಯಂತ ಶ್ರೇಷ್ಠನಾಗಿ

Synonyms of par excellence

Origin of par excellence

Unadapted borrowing from French par excellence (“excellently, in an especially representative way; above all”), a calque of Latin per excellentiam, itself a calque of Ancient Greek κατ’ ἐξοχήν (kat’ exokhḗn).

Questions about par excellence

What does par excellence mean?
Par excellence means because or on account of one's excellence.
What is par excellence in Tamil?
Par excellence in Tamil is ஒப்பிலலாத, ஒப்பிலி. See Par excellence meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is par excellence?
Par excellence can be an adverb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce par excellence?
Par excellence is pronounced /ˌpɑːɹ ˌɛksəˈlɑːns/ (UK).

Words near par excellence in the dictionary

  1. Paquin
  2. Paquins
  3. par
  4. par avion
  5. par delictum
  6. par excellence
  7. par for the course
  8. par off
  9. par value
  10. par values
  11. par yield

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: par excellence (page history and authors); par excellence (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); par excellence (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); par excellence (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “par excellence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/par_excellence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.