How to use excel in a sentence
40 example sentences · verb
Excel means to surpass someone or something; to be better or do better than someone or something. Example: “I excelled everyone else with my exam results.”
Examples of excel by meaning
verbTo surpass someone or something; to be better or do better than someone or something.
- I excelled everyone else with my exam results.
- Compositions which follow the style of Nissi Belzer's creations in structure but which excel them in length.1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 434
- La Rochefoucauld, the French philosopher, said: "If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you." Why is that true?1936, Dale Carnegie, “Part 3, Chapter 6: THE SAFETY VALVE IN HANDLING COMPLAINTS”, in How to Win Friends and Influence People
verbTo do much better than usual.
- Everyone agreed Magnus really excelled himself this tournament.
verbTo be much better than others.
- But it is as a destroyer of grasshoppers that the dickcissel excels.1901, Sylvester D. Judd, The Relation of Sparrows to Agriculture, page 91
- Lescott gave his finest England performance alongside his former Everton team-mate Phil Jagielka, who also excelled despite playing with a fractured toe, while Parker was given a deserved standing ovation when he was substituted late on.2011 November 12, “International friendly: England 1-0 Spain”, in BBC Sport
More sentences with excel
- He excelled at rowing and received a blue in the sport at Oxford.From the entry blue
- It's admirable that Shelley overcame her handicap and excelled in her work.From the entry admirable
- Some artists, like Michelangelo, excel in both painting and sculpture.From the entry painting
- The tutor excelled in comical scoldings.From the entry comical
- Another 'basic' is staff interaction with customers - and here, ScotRail excelled.2025 March 5, “Ayr miles with a 'Spirit of Scotland'”, in RAIL, number 1030, page 46. From the entry interaction
- Robots excel at exactly the repetitive tasks that stultify the human mind and strain the human body.2023 December 16, “Robots Free Humans from Repetitive Tasks”, in American Institute of Economic Research. From the entry stultify
- Now, a long-running Ponzi scheme requires a narrative — and the narrative is where crypto really excels.2021 May 20, Paul Krugman, “Technobabble, Libertarian Derp and Bitcoin”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry Ponzi scheme
- Aiyuk a junior college transfer excels in grabbing yardage after the catch.2020 April 23, Ken Belson, Ben Shpigel, “Full Round 1 2020 N.F.L. Picks and Analysis”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York…. From the entry yardage
- Cities: Skyline excels and delivers the new gold standard of modern city-builders.2015 May, Brian Shea, “Cities: Skylines”, in Game Informer, page 92. From the entry city-builder
- In other words, he needed players who would excel at the Oklahoma drill.2015 August 19, David Fleming, “Is the Oklahoma drill a rite of passage or everything to fear about football?”, in ESPN. From the entry Oklahoma drill
- When I worked in state government, babbitry was the only thing we excelled at.2011, Erik Deckers, Avoid Babbitry and Stand Out From the Crowd. From the entry babbitry
- Anthony knew he could excel in boxing because of his genetics.2010, Mike Furches, The Keystone Kids, →ISBN, page 238. From the entry genetics
- Deborah, who had just been describing to the company how much her husband excelled in jokesomeness.2008, R. D. Blackmore, Marry Anerley: A Yorkshire Tale. From the entry jokesomeness
- But this style of hammer also excels at smaller work, too.2008, Andy Rae, Choosing & Using Hand Tools, page 103. From the entry deadblow
- Often a prize would be awarded to some one dancer who had excelled his fellows.1907 October, Max Beerbohm, “‘A Morris for May-Day’”, in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, volume CXV, number DCLXXXIX, New York, N.Y.: Harper &…. From the entry secern
- Anthropic is regarded as a giant among AI companies, but perhaps what it really excels in is anthropomorphism.2026 June 3, Ted Chiang, “No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The…. From the entry anthropomorphism
- He excelled at geometry, algebra and fluxions.2022, Hernan Diaz, Trust, Picador (2023), page 141. From the entry fluxions
- One of the aesthetics in which Missouri Bluff Boutique particularly excels is lagenlook, which means 'layered look" in German.2019 April 10, Editors, Missouri Bluffs Boutique: Expressive Styles for the Eclectic Woman. From the entry lagenlook
- Reality television excels at connecting audiences with other people.2016, Laurie Ouellette, A Companion to Reality Television, page 126. From the entry shiny-floor
- Originally, the illusion of motion that movies excel at was thought to be the effect of the persistence of vision.2013, Francis Glebas, The Animator's Eye: Composition and Design, page 66. From the entry phi
- Unlike their conventional counterparts, practitioners of alternative medicine often excel at harnessing the placebo effect, says Dr Ernst.2011 May 19, “Think yourself better”, in The Economist, →ISSN. From the entry alternative medicine
- Perhaps surprisingly for a writer so easily caricatured as a dry Marxist theoretician, Berger excels in such sensual descriptions.2008 January 9, Sam Jordison, “Looking back at the Booker: John Berger”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News &…. From the entry finger-pointing
- You could enter those events at which you may excel.2006, Gene Wolfe, The Wizard: Book Two of The Wizard Knight. From the entry yeartide
- He excelled at cornhuskings, where men and boys were divided into two groups, each striving to shuck the most corn.2001, Donald Winkler, The Women in Lincoln's Life. From the entry cornhusking
- Animals are a little like ourselves: they excel in an art only on condition of specializing in it.1912, J[ean-]Henri Fabre, “The Garden Spiders: Pairing and Hunting”, in Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, transl., The Life of the Spider, New…. From the entry distil
- As a lady's lap-dog Leonard did not excel.1908–1910 (date written; published 1910 October 18), E[dward] M[organ] Forster, chapter 16, in Howards End, London: Edward Arnold, →OCLC. From the entry lap dog
- Sabean insisted he kept Posey at Triple A because the front office wasn't convinced the rookie could excel behind the plate in the big leagues.2015, Andrew Baggarly, Duane Kuiper, A Band of Misfits: Tales of the 2010 San Francisco Giants, →ISBN, page 12. From the entry front office
- He found the relaxed atmosphere fresh and exciting and actually began to excel in many areas of flight systems, propulsion, and even xenogeography.2009, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Nightsword: A Starshield Novel. From the entry xenogeography
- When catching hold of us again, which is really our re-registering of their vigilance, these contrarians are up and at the bullying they excel in.2007, Chi-thinking: Chiasmus and Cognition. From the entry bedog
- Even when he excelled at his favourite hobby of banger racing he attracted little attention and earned the reputation of being shy and introverted.2001 December 12, Staff and agencies, “A loner with a deadly secret”, Child protection, in The Guardian. From the entry banger racing
- African men in the district also excelled on the tassa drums at the Indian weddings and hosay festivals, playing alongside their Indian fellow villagers.1999, Kenrick P. Thomas, Panriga: Tacarigua's Contribution to the Evolution of the Steelband Phenomenon in Trinidad and Tobago. From the entry tassa
- Holmes, they excel in “saying undisputed things in a solemn way.” But that is typical of politicese, the language used by platform makers.1920 March 18, E. W. Anibal, “To-Day’s Prize Letter”, in New York Tribune, volume LXXIX, number 26,786, page 9. From the entry politicese
- But they can excel on specific, more narrowly defined tasks, such as summarizing conversations, answering patient questions as a health care chatbot, and gathering data in smart devices.2025 April 13, Stephen Ornes, “Small Language Models Are the New Rage, Researchers Say. Larger models can pull off a wider variety of…. From the entry SLM
- His book on governance has sold out in many countries across the world,” Zhong gushed, parroting the unashamedly hagiographic bulletins in which the party news agency Xinhua excels.2017 October 14, Tom Phillips, “Chairman Xi crushes dissent but poor believe he’s making China great”, in The Observer. From the entry hagiographic
Meaning of excel
- verb To surpass someone or something; to be better or do better than someone or something.
- verb To do much better than usual.
- verb To be much better than others.
Questions about excel in a sentence
- How do you use excel in a sentence?
- Excel is used as a verb. For example: “I excelled everyone else with my exam results.”
- What is a short sentence with excel?
- “The tutor excelled in comical scoldings.”
- What does excel mean?
- Excel means to surpass someone or something; to be better or do better than someone or something.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: excel (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use excel in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/excel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
