[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality of being excursive; a tendency to depart from the beaten track, or from any fixed course; digressiveness; capacity for mental ‘flights’ in varied directions.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1781), VI. xxxiv. 251. An excursiveness of imagination.
a. 1859. De Quincey, Conversation, Wks. XIV. 177. The natural excursiveness of colloquial intercourse … is one of its advantages.
1866. Whipple, Char. & Charac. Men, 222. The very process which gave depth and excursiveness to his mental vision.
