Literary notes about superfluous (AI summary)
Writers employ "superfluous" to signal that something is excessive or unnecessary, often suggesting that any additional element only detracts from what is essential. In descriptive passages, the term is used to denote precision—such as when a figure is depicted without any extra, nonessential flesh [1] or when a character’s appearance is so lean that every bit matters [2]. It also serves in rhetoric, where authors dismiss redundant commentary or detail (as seen when further explanations are deemed unneeded [3] or even when extravagant gestures are critiqued [4]). In more philosophical or socio-political contexts, "superfluous" connotes elements that exceed what is required, highlighting the unnecessary or trivial in complex systems [5, 6].
- He was slender, and, to her, perfect, a clean, straight-cut youth, without a grain of superfluous body.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence - She knew Mrs. Peter Blewett only by sight as a small, shrewish-faced woman without an ounce of superfluous flesh on her bones.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery - "Further explanations would be superfluous.
— from Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev - Mount them, and make incision in their hides, That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, And dout them with superfluous courage, ha!
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - Or was America, as Hegel believed, ideally superfluous, the absolute having become self-conscious enough already in Prussia?
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage to have the prejudices of the community on its side.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison
