excursive

American  

[ik-skur-siv] / ɪkˈskɜr sɪv /

adjective

1. given to making excursions in speech, thought, etc.; wandering; digressive.

2. of the nature of such excursions; rambling; desultory.

   excursive conversation.

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excursive British  

/ ɪkˈskɜːsɪv /

adjective

1. tending to digress

2. involving detours; rambling

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Other Word Forms

• excursively adverb
• excursiveness noun
• hyperexcursive adjective
• hyperexcursively adverb
• hyperexcursiveness noun
• unexcursive adjective
• unexcursively adverb

Etymology

Origin of excursive

1665–75; < Latin excurs ( us ) ( excursus ) + -ive

Example Sentences

Charm abounds — again, this is Tom Hanks — but “Masterpiece” is too often a maddeningly excursive endeavor that made me think, more than once, of a Richard Scarry book without the drawings.

From New York Times • May 7, 2023

But it’s less linear — the excursive record of a lifelong pilgrim over the 40 years since her groundbreaking debut album, “Horses.”

From Washington Post • Nov. 18, 2015

Rather, it is a more excursive record of a lifelong pilgrim, illustrated by Smith’s own black-and-white photographs, filled with mementos mori and personal accounts of her travels, her artistic obsessions and inspirations.

From Washington Post • Sep. 28, 2015

Downtown, Montgomery Ward installed a new Customer’s Parlor, where excursive fair visitors could loiter on soft couches while browsing the company’s five-hundred-page catalog.

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson

How much of consciousness, if any, may be felt at the point where the excursive phantasm is seen, we cannot say.

From Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death by Myers, F. W. H. (Frederic William Henry)