Pl. excursus, after Lat.; now usually excursuses. [a. L. excursus, n. of action f. excurrĕre lit. ‘to run out’: see EXCUR and cf. EXCURSION.]
1. The Lat. word is used by editors of the classics to signify: A detailed discussion (usually in the form of an appendix at the end of the book, or of a division of it) of some point which it is desired to treat more fully than can be done in a note. Hence occas. applied to a similar appendix in other works.
1803. Ann. Rev., I. 527/2. This subject is considered in the first excursus of the 8th book [in Heyne’s Homer]. Ibid., 535/2. Of those excursus which relate to the historical illustration of the poet.
1858. Sat. Rev., V. 536/1. The volume is closed by two carefully-written excursus.
1861. M. Pattison, Ess. (1889), I. 30. They … should be read as excursuses to accompany his text.
1878. W. H. Simcox, in Academy, 594/3. He adds … a series of excursuses on the leading ideas of the Epistle.
2. A digression in which some incidental point is discussed at length.
1845. Athenæum, 11 Jan., 48/3. But we shall quite bewilder—if not ourselves, our readers—by this excursus.
1876. C. M. Davies, Unorth. Lond. (ed. 2), 384. He concluded a most interesting excursus by dwelling on the prospects of Church extension.
1882. A. W. Ward, Dickens, vi. 160. The excellent description of a winter journey … with an excursus on inns in general.
